tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73225114816125777672024-03-28T06:02:18.248-07:00Bad News About ChristianityEver suspected that your Church leaders and Christian school masters didn't tell you the full truth about their religion?Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.comBlogger50125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-30908594845362299582016-02-20T09:06:00.000-08:002016-02-21T01:43:53.288-08:00Science and the Baleful Influence of the Anglican Church<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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One of the greatest disasters wrought by Christianity has been the suppression of science for the 1500 years when Christian ideas reigned supreme. We all know about cases of proto-scientists like Michael Servetus and Giordano Bruno who were burned alive for questioning Christian views. We also know about cases where people were silenced by the prospect of being burned at the stake. </div>
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A more subtle disaster was the waste of time caused by religious indoctrination. The greatest minds were trammelled in infancy so that (however great they were) they could never be fully liberated to achieve their full potential. Galileo was constrained by the orthodox view that planetary orbits must be circular. Kepler believed the traditional teaching that angels kept the planets moving. Newton wasted time trying to decipher the Bible's hidden secrets. Even Darwin frittered away vast amounts of time as a young putative clergyman puzzling over bogus prophecies in the book of Daniel.</div>
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Another way in which Christian teaching inhibited scientific progress was though social pressure. As the Churches lost power, the threat of death diminished. The range of threat included clerically inspired mob violence (eg Joseph Priestly), loss of occupation (eg 19th century geologists), and social ostracism (eg William Godwin). This is one reason why almost all scientific progress up to the mid-nineteenth century was made by noblemen and rich scions of noble families. They moved in educated circles where traditional Church teachings were already held in contempt, and rich and powerful circles where the power of the Church was limited.</div>
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For others, social pressure could be enormous. One spectacular example of this was provided by Thomas Fairchild, a celebrated eighteenth century gardener in Hoxton, near the City of London. Fairchild was the first to create a plant hybrid in (perhaps before) 1717. He placed the pollen of sweet william (<i>Dianthus barbatus</i>) on the style of a gillyflower (<i>Dianthus caryophyllus</i>). A new hybrid flower, a type of carnation, looked like neither of its parents, establishing sexual reproduction in plants. This infertile flower became known as "Fairchild's Mule."</div>
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Hybrids had existed for a long time already (Shakespeare makes reference to a debate as to their natural or unnatural qualities in “<i>The Winter's Tale</i>”) but what Fairchild was doing was clearly blasphemous. It was “playing God”, presuming to tamper with God’s Creation (exactly the same religious objection still made by traditional Churches to modern genetic science). Fairchild worried about a backlash occasioned by his taking the power over creation into his own hands. To compound his crime, Fairchild had recognised that plants had sexes. He corresponded with the great Linnaeus who also recognised the existence of plant sexes. For Christians this was an abomination. Cross-pollinating species manually was obscene as well as blasphemous, and another cause of criticism of both Fairchild and Linnaeus.</div>
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The significance of Fairchild’s work was enormous. He became celebrated in scientific circles for his experiment, and presented a dried flower from his hybrid to the Royal Society in 1720. His work should have triggered much further research, but it did not. Outside the scientific community it was blasphemous to attempt to create a new species, because God had already created all the species he wanted on Earth. Fairchild did not pursue the obvious lines of further research, and neither did anyone else until his ideas were taken up again by horticulturalists a century later when the influence of Christianity had diminished further.</div>
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Fairchild, a devout Christian, should have been a national hero. Instead he would live in fear of God’s wrath for the rest of his life. He died in 1729, apparently still terrified about the prospects for his soul. He bequeathed twenty-five pounds to St Leonard’s Church in the Hackney Rd for the endowment of an annual Whitsun sermon on either "The wonderful works of God in Creation" or "On the certainty of the resurrection of the dead, proved by certain changes of the animal and vegetable parts of creation". This annual event, a form of atonement for his sins, became known as the “Vegetable Sermon” and is still held each year, attended by the Worshipful Company of Gardeners. It provides a baleful reminder of the influence of the Anglican Church in Eighteenth century England.</div>
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More at <a href="http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/eb0_modern.htm#fairchild">www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com</a><br />
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Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com147tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-53142330027393386692014-06-04T22:44:00.000-07:002015-01-06T12:49:20.923-08:00More child deaths and irregular burials by the Catholic Church<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We now know pretty well what happened to single mothers in Ireland, up to the 1990s. <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 25.316190719604492px;">They were incarcerated in </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 25.316190719604492px;">Church-run</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 25.316190719604492px;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 25.316190719604492px;">state-funded, institutions. In these institutions, called mother and baby homes or Magdalene asylums, the women were obliged to carry out hard manual work, to atone for their sins (and provide profits to the institution). Their children were punished too for the sins of their parents. Usually they were stolen from their mothers. Some of the children were secretly sent abroad to be brought up by good Catholic families. Some became sex toys, Some were beaten to death, starved to death, or murdered in other ways. Mortality rates were over four times higher than in the rest of the population.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 25.316190719604492px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now we know a little bit more. In one home at least, children's bodies - almost 800 - were denied a proper burial but instead dumped in a sewage tank. As you might have guessed, the Catholic Church has declined to apologise, or to carry out or assist in any investigation.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 25.316190719604492px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Below is an article from the Guardian, 4th June 2014.</span></span><br />
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Tell us the truth about the children dumped in Galway's mass graves</h1>
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Forget prayers. Only full disclosure by Ireland's Catholic church can begin to atone for the children who died in its care </div>
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<span itemprop="author" itemscope="" itemtype="http://schema.org/Person" style="background-repeat: no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><span itemprop="name" style="background-repeat: no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a class="contributor" href="http://www.theguardian.com/profile/emer-o-toole" itemprop="url" rel="author" style="background-repeat: no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #005689; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">Emer O'Toole</a></span></span></div>
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<span class="inline wide" style="border-collapse: collapse; display: block; float: none; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 1.166em; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: auto;"><img alt="Sean Ross Abbey" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2014/6/4/1401881551892/Sean-Ross-Abbey-009.jpg" data-pin-description="Sean Ross Abbey, a home run by nuns in County Tipperary, from where 438 babies were secretly exported to the US for adoption. Photograph: Brian Lockier/www.adoptionrightsalliance.com " height="276" style="background-repeat: no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; margin: 0px; padding: 5px 0px 0px;" width="460" /><span class="caption" style="background-repeat: no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #666666; display: block; font-size: 0.858em; line-height: 1.25; margin: 0px 0px 13px; padding: 0px; width: 460px;">Sean Ross Abbey, a home run by nuns in County Tipperary, from where 438 babies were secretly exported to the US for adoption. Photograph: Brian Lockier/www.adoptionrightsalliance.com</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/04/claim-of-800-childrens-bodies-buried-at-irish-home-for-unwed-mothers" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: #005689; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="">bodies of 796 children</a>, between the ages of two days and nine years old, have been found in a disused sewage tank in Tuam, County Galway. They died between 1925 and 1961 in a mother and baby home under the care of the Bon Secours nuns.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Locals have known about the grave since 1975, when two little boys, playing, broke apart the concrete slab covering it and discovered a tomb filled with small skeletons. A parish priest said prayers at the site, and it was sealed once more, the number of bodies below unknown, their names forgotten.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Tuam historian <a href="http://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/cahirodoherty/Galway-historian-reveals-truth-behind-800-orphans-in-mass-grave.html" style="background-repeat: no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #005689; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="">Catherine Corless discovered the extent of the mass grave </a>when she requested records of children's deaths in the home. The registrar in Galway gave her almost 800. Shocked, she checked 100 of these against graveyard burials, and found only one little boy who had been returned to a family plot. The vast majority of the children's remains, it seemed, were in the septic tank. Corless and a committee have been working tirelessly to raise money for a memorial that includes a plaque bearing each child's name.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For those of you unfamiliar with how, until the 1990s, Ireland dealt with unmarried mothers and their children, here it is: the women were incarcerated in state-funded, church-run institutions called mother and baby homes or Magdalene asylums, where they worked to atone for their sins. Their children were taken from them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">According to Corless, death rates for children in the Tuam mother and baby home, and in similar institutions, were <a href="http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A20587489%3A53%3A28%2D05%2D2014%3A" style="background-repeat: no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #005689; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="">four to five times that of the general population</a>. A health board report from 1944 on the Tuam home describes emaciated, potbellied children, mentally unwell mothers and appalling overcrowding. But, as Corless points out, this was no different to other homes in Ireland. They all had the same mentality: that these women and children should be punished.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ireland knows all this. We know about the abuse women and children suffered at the hands of the clergy, abuse funded by a theocratic Irish state. What we didn't know is that they threw dead children into unmarked mass graves. But we're inured to these revelations by now.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Corless expresses surprise <a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/tuam-mass-grave-babies-1488267-May2014/" style="background-repeat: no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #005689; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="">that the media were so slow to report her story</a>, that people didn't seem to care. If two children were found in an unmarked grave, she observes, it would be news; what about 800? But what is the difference between the wall of lies, denial and secrecy the church constructed to protect its paedophile priests and a concrete slab over the bodies of 796 children neglected to death by nuns? Good people unearth these evil truths, but the church always survives.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The <a href="http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/church-to-meet-over-memorial-for-800-babies-at-mass-grave-30321303.html" style="background-repeat: no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #005689; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="">archbishop of Tuam and the head of the Irish Bon Secours sisters will soon meet </a>to discuss the memorial and service planned at the site. The Bon Secours sisters have donated what the Irish TV station RTÉ describes as "a small sum" to the children's graveyard committee.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0530/620665-tuam-babies-grave/" style="background-repeat: no-repeat; border-collapse: collapse; color: #005689; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" title="">Father Fintan Monaghan, secretary of the Tuam archediocese</a>, says: "I suppose we can't really judge the past from our point of view, from our lens. All we can do is mark it appropriately and make sure there is a suitable place here where people can come and remember the babies that died."</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Let's not judge the past on our morals, then, but on the morals of the time. Was it OK, in mid-20th century Ireland, to throw the bodies of dead children into sewage tanks? Monaghan is really saying: "don't judge the past at all". But we must judge the past, because that is how we learn from it.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Monaghan is correct that we need to mark history appropriately. That's why I am offering the following suggestions as to what the church should do to in response:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Do not say Catholic prayers over these dead children. Don't insult those who were in life despised and abused by you. Instead, tell us where the rest of the bodies are. There were homes throughout Ireland, outrageous child mortality rates in each. Were the Tuam Bon Secours sisters an anomalous, rebellious sect? Or were church practices much the same the country over? If so, how many died in each of these homes? What are their names? Where are their graves? We don't need more platitudinous damage control, but the truth about our history.</span></div>
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Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com79Tuam, Co. Galway, Ireland53.514722199999987 -8.8513888999999627.992687699999987 -50.15998289999996 79.036756699999984 32.457205100000039tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-41801961718822423742014-05-19T23:42:00.000-07:002015-01-11T06:56:37.888-08:00Religious Auto-Exceptionalism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Most rationalist are fascinated by the religious mind. There are many aspects to be fascinated by. The failure to see obvious self-contractions and fatal inconsistencies. The failure to follow simple arguments. The love of supposed “mysteries”, and so on. One aspect that seems to have received no attention to date is the phenomenon of making up oppressive rules and then making up reasons to ignore them. This phenomenon of what we might call religious auto-exceptionalism appears to be restricted to monotheistic religions.</div>
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Here are a few examples. Let’s start with a couple of Jewish ones. The first is an Hasidic tradition of Jewish women wearing a sheitel, a wig or half-wig. The underlying idea is that, as in Moslem communities, a woman must not let anyone outside her immediate family see her hair. To ensure that no-one can see her hair, she cuts it off, or at least hides it under a sheitel. The sheitel is considered like a sort of hat and there is no rule about who can see your hat. But of course a good sheitel looks just like a natural head of hair. So women wearing a sheitel can go around looking like women with a normal head of hair – even an attractive head of hair. What is going on is that they have made a rule about female modesty, and then developed a way to flout it. In a wonderful piece of triple-think Some Jewish women will then cover their sheitel for the sake of modesty!</div>
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Here’s another Jewish example. In the Jewish scriptures God gives his chosen people one day off in every seven. People do not need to work on the Sabbath. The provision permitting people not to work became an injunction not to work. God told Moses to kill a man for collecting firewood on the Sabbath day. The word “work” is interpreted to cover all sorts of activity. Orthodox Jews will not perform such everyday tasks as lighting a fire, making a telephone call or opening an umbrella. In short, all sorts of normal activity is banned, so a small industry has grown up inventing ways of doing things automatically without performing even basic activities. At one end of the spectrum people will prepare a meal the day before, and set an oven timer to cook it for their Sabbath meal. At the other end of the spectrum are a host of specially made devices designed specifically to get around these pointless restrictions. And it gets better. Jeremiah 17:22 says</div>
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neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, neither do ye any work; but hallow ye the Sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers.</blockquote>
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So as well as a prohibition on doing things, there is also a prohibition on carrying things out of your house. This covers anything. People cannot for example carry their car keys out of the house. They cannot even carry a prayer book to the synagogue. And the rule affects everyone, so mothers cannot carry babies, not even in strollers. Old people cannot “carry” walking sticks. Sick people cannot carry medicines. Handicapped people cannot “carry” wheelchairs. As has often been observed, only a religious mind can invent nonsense of a magnitude such as this.</div>
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This prohibition on “carrying” is taken very seriously by Orthodox Jews who have developed a vast collection of law on the subject, many rules made by one group contradicting rules made by other groups. (If you take something out of your house then bring it back, have you carried it out?). These rules are not only pointless in any rational universe, but seriously oppressive. So religious minds have found ways to justify ways around the rules. An obvious problem is that the rule prohibits the wearing of clothes, and no religious person wants to enforce that. So clothes are considered exempt. And that opens up possibilities. For example if your car key is built into a belt, and you wear the belt, then you are not technically carrying the key! Incidentally, if you think I’m making this up, you can check the facts with any Orthodox Jew, or any book of Jewish law or any Orthodox Jewish website. In the Orthodox community there is much debate over the wearing of spectacles, hearing aids, bandages and plaster casts, and wristwatches, with separate debates over men’s and women’s jewelry.</div>
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Wearing instead of carrying is not the only way of getting around the rules. Another is to extend the definition of your “house”. Rabbis have developed a whole fantasy world where “houses” are not actual houses but neighbourhoods. These fantasy houses are ritual enclosures. Originally they had to be linked courtyards, but that proved impractical. So the rules were relaxed to allow an area surrounded by a substantial wall. When that became impractical the rules were changed again to allow a flimsy fence. A ritual area regarded as a single house for the purposes of Jewish law is called an erov. Today, there are erovs in most major cities in the western world, allowing Orthodox Jews to ignore the oppressive arbitrary rules that they invented for themselves.</div>
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Individuals do much the same thing as the rabbis, playing linguistic tricks, but on a smaller scale. The technique might be less subtle, but it is identical in principle. It is not uncommon to find Jewish people who will not eat <i>pork</i>, but will eat bacon, ham, gammon and wild boar. A simple redefinition of the word pork achieves the desired result. Instead of denoting all pig-meat, the word pork is regarded as denoting only particular types of pig-meat.</div>
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Muslims are also adept at making up rules and then finding ways around them. One rule prohibits telling lies in all circumstances, but this is unrealistic so a doctrine called <i>taqiyya</i> permits Muslims to lie in certain circumstances. Again, the Quran prohibits the drinking of fermented grape juice but says nothing about palm wine or other forms of alcohol. Even so the Quranic injunction is almost universally extended to all forms of alcohol. In practice this is too harsh for many and those who want to can find exceptions. So in some countries there is a market in medical tinctures, permitting Muslims to consume alcohol ostensibly for medicinal reasons. Again the hardship of pilgrimage – an essential element of the hajj – is routinely avoided and the hajj is converted into a holiday. Instead of spending months travelling on foot through deserts, living in the open and scavenging for food, many Muslims just jump on an airplane and stay in luxury hotels. Again, in Saudi Arabia the month of Ramadan is intended to be a month of fasting and hardship. In practice it is often a month of daytime indolence and all-night parties and feasting.</div>
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For Christians the position is much the same. Restrictions are routinely imposed. Often they are exaggerated and made oppressive. Then reasons are found to ignore them. Jews, Christians and Moslems have all made up rules about making images, and then had to change those rules. Again they all made up rules about money lending and then founds ways around them. Historically, at least a dozen different reasons have been found to ignore the comprehensive biblical prohibition on killing. As with the Jews, observance of the Sabbath was converted from a privilege permitting people not to work became an obligation forcing them not to enjoy themselves. Protestants tried imposing Muslim style prohibitions on alcohol, even though there is no prohibition, or even criticism, of it in the Bible. Again, lying is absolutely prohibited, except when the requirement becomes too onerous. Catholics have their own form of taqiyya, allowing them to tell lies in contravention of the Ten Commandments (Its called "equivocation" or mental reservation). No matter how clear a teaching, there are ways around it. Churches have created whole industries dedicated to finding ways around the clear biblical requirement for believers to give away everything they own.</div>
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Perhaps the best example of Christian auto-exceptionalism concerns the historic rules around fasting. The idea was that Christians in general, and monks in particular, should eat moderately, avoiding rich foods and over-indulgence. This was formalized into rules restricting the consumption of meat, eggs and dairy products for Christians on certain days, with stricter and more onerous restrictions for monks. In some cases these rules became too onerous, often causing ill-health because of inadequate diets. Various ways around the restrictions were therefore found. For the rich, the Church simply sold the right to eat forbidden foods. We still have a reminder of how lucrative this trade was. Europe is dotted with “butter towers” – ecclesiastical buildings funded by money obtained by selling the right to consume dairy products during Lent. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The Butter Tower of the Cathedral at Rouen, painted by Thomas Colman Dibdin, <span style="text-align: start;">1879</span></span></td></tr>
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Monks were more parsimonious and exploited exceptions instead of paying for exemptions. These exceptions had been perfectly reasonable in principle and covered those who were ill or travelling. Anyone in a monastic hospital could be served meat and dairy products. Over time more and more monks took to eating in the hospital rather than the refectory. Some monasteries interpreted the rule even more liberally. It was applied only to food served in the refectory – so monks simply found reasons to eat elsewhere, setting up alternative dining rooms where the rules did not apply. Better still, monks found that they could get around the prohibitions, even in the refectory, simply by classifying animals in ways that suited their purpose. Since fish was allowed on fast days, a simple solution was to classify various animals as fish. So it was that monks classified beaver as a fish, arguing that it had a scaly tail. They also classified Barnacle Geese as fish, arguing that these geese grew from the sea creatures we still call goose barnacles.<br />
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Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com148tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-72506049229616391452014-05-11T23:18:00.001-07:002014-05-18T04:08:48.679-07:00Kill The Jews<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The Christian Church is adapting itself to the secular world in almost all areas. It has been remarkably successful in covering its tracks on its traditional teachings. Modern Christians outside the most conservative Christian communities generally have no idea what traditional Christian teachings were on subjects such as capital punishment, torture, slavery, women's rights, "mixed" marriages, freedom of belief, anti-Semitism, and so on.</div>
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The trick is done in to ways. The first is to rewrite history to make Christians the good guys - we all learn in school about Christian reformers, rarely do we hear that they followed generations of non-Christian reformers or that the few Christian reformers spent their lives fighting opposition from the majority of their orthodox brethren. The second is to remove the evidence. Hardly any Inquisition records survive. Trial records disappear. Compromising letters get lost, or edited. Torture chambers get turned into innocuous well-lit offices. Teams of Christians work night and day to ensure that Wikipedia gives a view slanted to the benefit of the Church.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">Saint James Matamore - what you see today and what you don't see today</span><br />
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There are a few areas that the Churches have not yet cleaned up, and others that the Churches started to clean up only after the invention of photography. The process started late in particularly religious countries like Catholic Spain. Spain is around a generation later in the process than northern Europe. So it is that Catholic priests, monks and nuns are still involved in various forms of traditional animal torture from bull fighting to throwing live goats off church towers.</div>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3e5v2_Ysnfn9cIiKqBMx1W9bSZyJKpYBFjfLbHNZN2l0ALmtCgNls5gM1-gbZks_iKkrrk1TYGZ2ADIWXUNvkyqvjUbeoVMNWVBs1kAiol00U2AJmH_EmCOXcsEGqiroYsWEzrYXWdYlL/s1600/st_vincent.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3e5v2_Ysnfn9cIiKqBMx1W9bSZyJKpYBFjfLbHNZN2l0ALmtCgNls5gM1-gbZks_iKkrrk1TYGZ2ADIWXUNvkyqvjUbeoVMNWVBs1kAiol00U2AJmH_EmCOXcsEGqiroYsWEzrYXWdYlL/s1600/st_vincent.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Goat throwing from the Church tower at Manganeses de la Polyvorosa, Spain, to celebrate the patron saint, Saint Vincent.</span></td></tr>
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One point of growing embarrassment is the national Saint of Spain. Santiago, Sant Iago, or Saint James, sounds innocuous enough, except that he is actually Santiago Matamoros, Saint James the Moor Killer. In Christian fantasy the heavenly saint fought alongside Christian forces against the Muslims at the Battle of Clavijo during the reconquista, cutting down and trampling God's enemies. Each year, festivals around the country feature brave Christian knights killing Muslims. A number of Mexican settlements were named Matamoros by Spanish settlers in honour of their patron saint.</div>
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Perhaps the best example of a late survival of Spain's Christian past, concerns not Muslims but Jews. The mayor of a village called Castrillo Matajudíos is thinking of changing the town's name. Why might he think this a good idea? Because the name means "Castrillo Kill the Jews", apparently commemorating a Medieval Christian pogrom of Jews. The word Matarjudios, "Kill the Jews", features elsewhere in Spanish life. It is a common family surname, as well as the name of an Easter drink. Such cultural fossils present a problem to modern Christians trying to whitewash the Christian history of ingrained anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitic martyrdom tales have been dropped, anti-Semitic paintings, monuments and statues have vanished, anti-Semitic texts are no longer officially given an imprimatur, the anti-Semitic wording of Easter services was disretely changed in the 1960's. All we have left as a reminder of the truth is the name Matarjudios.</div>
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Spanish village of Castrillo Kill the Jews votes on name change</span></h2>
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Mayor of Castrillo Matajudíos has proposed reverting to village's original name, Castrillo Mota de Judios (Castrillo Jews Hill)</h3>
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<span style="color: blue;">theguardian.com, Monday 14 April 2014 14.40 BST</span></div>
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After living with the name for more than 500 years, the village of Castrillo Matajudíos (Castrillo Kill the Jews) looks set for a change.</div>
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This week the 60 residents of the village in northern Spain will vote on a proposal put forward by the mayor, Lorenzo Rodríguez, to revert to what is believed to be its original name, Castrillo Mota de Judios (Castrillo Jews Hill).</div>
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It apparently acquired this name in 1035 when Jews fleeing a pogrom in a nearby village took refuge on the hill. "The people of [nearby] Castrojeriz took up arms against the king's emissaries, killed five of them and 66 Jews, while the rest were banished to Castrillo, which became known as the Mota de los Judios," the mayor told the local newspaper Diario de Burgos.</div>
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After Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, "someone wrote that now we're more Christian and decided to change the name from Jews' Hill to Kill the Jews," Rodriguez said, adding that it was important for people to understand "our roots" before reaching a decision on the name.</div>
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There is a local tradition in the Castilla León region of drinking matar judios – a mix of wine and lemonade – on Good Friday. Matarjudios still exists as a surname, as does the more common Matamoros (Kill the Moors). The patron saint of Spain, Saint James of Compostela, is also known as Saint James the Moorslayer. Legend has it that his disciples brought his relics in a stone boat from the Holy Land to Galicia, in north-west Spain.</div>
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This was about 100 years after Muslims conquered Spain. Saint James became the symbol of the Christian reconquest, which lasted 800 years and ended in 1492 with the fall of Granada and the expulsion of Jews. Muslims were expelled shortly afterwards.</div>
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As the announcement from Castrillo Matajudíos came during the first days of the Passover holiday, there was no immediate response from Spain's Jewish leadership. But a Jewish American who has lived in Spain for many years but preferred not to be named told the Guardian the debate reflected an entrenched historical antisemitism in Spain.</div>
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"Frankly it doesn't surprise me that there's a village called Kill the Jews, though it's pretty disgusting that it's taken them till now to think it might be a good idea to change it. There's a casual racism in Spain that no one here seems to notice but which is quite shocking to an outsider. People say 'he's a bit of a Jew' and stuff like that and no one seems to notice. Plus Spain is in complete denial about its Jewish and Muslim history."</div>
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Jews arrived in Spain 2,000 years ago, and until the rise of the Inquisition in the Middle Ages Spain had one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe. They were tolerated by the Romans but persecuted by the Christian Visigoths who conquered Roman Spain. The Visigoths introduced forced conversion as early as the 7th century.</div>
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As a result, when the Muslims invaded in 711 they were embraced by the Jews who helped them to drive out their Visigothic oppressors. A period of religious tolerance, unheard of anywhere else in Europe, ensued, with Muslims, Christian and Jews living in relative harmony.</div>
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However, the plague that swept across Europe in the 14th century was widely blamed on the Jews and in 1391 there were pogroms in all of Spain's major cities, leading to an exodus and mass conversion to Christianity.</div>
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Today there are only about 12,000 Jews in Spain, compared with 290,000 in the UK and 478,000 in France. In 2008 a survey carried out by the Pew Research Centre found Spain to be one of the most antisemitic countries in Europe.</div>
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Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-18080686301694631592014-05-06T23:24:00.000-07:002014-05-06T23:24:54.045-07:00Christian Marriage<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Cardinals and bishops have recently been claiming that same sex marriage is as sinful as slavery. The Pope has supported them, describing same sex marriage as an "attack on justice". The underlying problem is that, according to churchmen, marriage is a distinctly Christian institution with a consistent long tradition. Less canny churchmen are happy to expand on this: it is an institution stretching back to biblical times, unchanged since then, joining one man and woman, for life. The reason that only less canny churchmen are willing to spell this out, is that is that it is an impossible position to sustain. Marriage has not always been a Christian institution. Formalised pair bonding is almost universal in human societies around the world. The wedding that Jesus attended was a Jewish marriage not a Christian one. The Bible nowhere mentions Jesus establishing Christian marriage. It does not mention Christian marriage at all. </div>
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For many centuries the Church did not even try to impose Christian marriage. Marriage was a secular contract, often based on pagan practice. Most of our pleasant little ceremonies associated with marriage - rings, bridesmaids, flowers, carrying the bride over the threshold - are all pre-Christian pagan customs, many of them Roman. The Catholic Church developed an optional ceremony called matrimony, but did not try to impose Christian matrimony in place of ordinary secular marriage until the twenty-fourth session of the Council of Trent in 1563. For the first time Matrimony was formally declared a sacrament. Even then the Council explicitly recognised traditional secular marriages as "valid and true marriages". Traditional secular marriages continued for centuries afterwards, and the Church continued to recognise these secular marriages, so that for example a person who entered a secular marriage could not then marry someone else in Church. Traditional secular marriages slowly declined throughout Europe. They were swept away in England by the Marriage Act of 1753 and in Scotland by the Marriage (Scotland) Act of 1939 - so the distinctly Christian tradition is really not that old - and in both countries was imposed by law, not voluntarily embraced by a devout populace.</div>
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The Bible, and Christian Churches up until the nineteenth century, were also happy to countenance Morganatic marriage and even concubinage. King Solomon had had 300 concubines, and had been acclaimed by God for his wisdom. In line with the Bible, Christian men kept concubines for many centuries, and in some countries still do. In the USA slaves and ex-slaves were often taken as concubines, especially where Christian endorsed State laws made "mixed" marriages between blacks and whites illegal, as such marriages remained until 1967. Then there is the question of marriage being only for men and women. Church Law was perfectly happy to marry men to girls, or boys to women, or boys to girls. In theory the children had to be aged at least seven, and the wedding could be voided up to the age of 12 for girls and 14 for boys. In practice we know of many instances where babes-in-arms underwent matrimonial ceremonies in church. </div>
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Then there is the question of one man/boy and one woman/girl. Old Testament writings indicate clearly that God approved of polygamy. Wise old King Solomon had had 700 wives, as well as his concubines. New Testament writings fail to indicate that God ever changed his mind about polygamy (except specifically for bishops who "must be blameless, the husband of one wife", 1 Timothy 3-2). As Martin Luther observed "I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict Scripture". Lutheran theologians approved of Philip of Hesse's polygamous marriages to Christina of Saxony and Margarethe von der Saale. The Anglican Church made a decision at the 1988 Lambeth Conference to admit polygamists, subject to certain restrictions.</div>
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So when exactly did God change his mind about polygamy, and how do we know? And why did he not mention his change of policy to his Christian followers for centuries after his sojourn on Earth? (Incidentally, God did not mention his change of policy to Jewish followers for a millennium, and he still has not mentioned it to his Moslem followers). Because of this lack of clarity some Christian sects continued to practice polygamy, and a few still do today. Even mainstream Churches go along with polygamy where it is in their interests to do so, for example in parts of Africa where polygamy is popular, and Moslems and Christians compete for converts. Catholic Presidents in Africa are widely known to be in polygamous marriages, but they still get warm welcomes at the Vatican. Jesus Christ himself can be seen as a polygamist - countless thousands of Catholic nuns were traditionally encouraged by their Church to consider themselves to be married to him. The ceremony in which they took their vows and became "brides of Christ" were conscious imitations of wedding ceremonies, even down to the wedding crown, veil and dowry.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWIqw8_LRxdILuHSDoW4ttUHNzDfQ3jo28f_0Q2vXnKQvexk7uvyGkAtbM7VY5tgGEsEQb7HDKW7A5ihuYQVOLr_7JDZyAo6vCLnsLRjo91o3ETpocufYXZ8_R1F-vT-T_ridWacdje9Mk/s1600/brides.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWIqw8_LRxdILuHSDoW4ttUHNzDfQ3jo28f_0Q2vXnKQvexk7uvyGkAtbM7VY5tgGEsEQb7HDKW7A5ihuYQVOLr_7JDZyAo6vCLnsLRjo91o3ETpocufYXZ8_R1F-vT-T_ridWacdje9Mk/s1600/brides.jpg" height="320" width="288" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #000033; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: xx-small;">This photograph is entitled "A Meeting of the Brides of Christ on their Wedding Day to their Lord at the Nunnery in Godalming, Surrey". It was taken in 1965 at the Ladywell Convent and is one of a series on the lives of nuns that Eve Arnold took during the mid-1960s. </span></td></tr>
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Then there is the purported purpose of marriage. For traditional secular marriage there could be any purpose, including romantic love. But love has never had any part in Christian marriage. The possible reasons have varied from the traditional Catholic insistence, codified in Cannon law, that the only acceptable motive for marriage was procreation, to the three acceptable motives recognised by Anglicans. These three motives are procreation, companionship and as a "remedy against fornication", because without marriage we should all be copulating like the "brute beasts of the field". </div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Traditional marriages undertaken by Christians were arranged marriages. They transferred the ownership of a woman from her father to her husband. That's why the father is still said to "give away" his daughter during Christian wedding ceremonies. As in the bible, women were a form of property, not very different from slaves and other chattels, denied legal privileges of their male owners. In any case, love was not and still is not required in Christian marriage. By contrast, in practice, love is central to modern secular marriage.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Again, there is the question of whether marriage is for life. Clearly Christian marriage was not. At various times the Roman Church dissolved marriages for a wide range of reasons, some of which, like adultery, were explicitly authorised in the Bible. There is a large body of Canon Law setting out the many conditions under which marriages can be dissolved. The Church dissolved something like 20 percent of medieval marriages between royalty and nobility - pretty much on demand if both parties agreed and were prepared to pay. The marriage between Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough and Consuelo Vanderbilt was annulled by Pope Pius XI on 19 August 1926. He obligingly legitimized their two sons.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL91ipwlG-86g1Ca3p2moU_QpY-xhiM7BHJC_a_9jDuEINix-S7cmkpEcSbBLQuEdCApia2JDyly4OIpDObjYVo6ZebhatWE0q1uw4SPp_lnjszjc5Xh6qo8FqSeNgUCTF_MXCf90AH350/s1600/marlborough.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL91ipwlG-86g1Ca3p2moU_QpY-xhiM7BHJC_a_9jDuEINix-S7cmkpEcSbBLQuEdCApia2JDyly4OIpDObjYVo6ZebhatWE0q1uw4SPp_lnjszjc5Xh6qo8FqSeNgUCTF_MXCf90AH350/s1600/marlborough.jpg" height="320" width="304" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> Charles, 9th Duke of Marlborough, with his wife Consuelo, and two sons</td></tr>
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Christian marriage has never been for life, for those with influence. In Britain after the Reformation, Parliament dissolved marriages, reinforcing the fact that for Anglicans marriage was a secular, not a religious matter. Today the divorce courts in Britain, as in many countries, operate under civil law, not ecclesiastical law.<br />
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While in Western Churches, because of divorce, marriage can be for less than life. In the Eastern Church, it can be for more than life. A Christian widow or widower was traditionally expected to remain faithful to their dead spouse. The Church discouraged a second marriage ("digamy"), strongly discouraged a third marriage and completely prohibited a fourth.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Then there is the question of consistency. For most Christian denominations, marriage is not a sacrament. For Catholics it is. Anglicans may marry their first cousins, but Catholics may not. At one time Catholics were not permitted to marry anyone within seven degrees of consanguinity, in practice making almost all marriages voidable. All of the main denominations have different ideas of who can marry. Catholic and Orthodox Churches have different rules not only for divorcees and bereaved spouses, but also for priests. Catholic Priests were once able to marry but now they are not allowed to - though married men can, and sometimes do, become priests. According to the Roman Church, couples who are handicapped and unable to have children may not marry - Catholic priests have refused to marry couples on these grounds even in recent times. According to more liberal denominations such couples may marry. Liberal denominations welcome "gay marriage": conservative denominations condemn it as blasphemous. In short, there is no element of Christian marriage that has been consistently applied by Christian Churches, and certainly not since biblical times.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The fact is that marriage is not a distinctly Christian institution. Christian marriage as we now know it has neither a long nor a consistent tradition. It is a relative late comer, and has changed in fundamental ways from place to place, time to time, and sect to sect, with wildly different rules about how it applies and whom it applies to. Perhaps the time has come to stop pretending that the Christian Church has a monopoly on marriage. If churchmen so desperately need a special word to apply to their Christian weddings, why not use holy matrimony, and leave marriage for the Government and the rest of us. </div>
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Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com75tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-69071850862174332422014-05-06T04:20:00.000-07:002014-05-06T04:20:57.604-07:00Christianity's Love of Banning Things<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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One of the characteristic elements of most brands of Christianity is the drive to stop people doing things they enjoy. There are plenty of examples of Christian kill-joys banning or limiting ordinary activities: reading books, playing sports, singing, dancing, sex, gambling, mixed bathing, theatre, and so on. By far the best known is drinking alcohol - in many places in Europe and the US there are still legal limitations concerning alcohol, especially drinking alcohol on the Sabbath.<br />
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Banning the purchase, sale, possession or consumption of alcoholic drinks is a Puritan specialty. Indeed, one of the attractions of <span style="font-family: inherit;">prohibiting alcohol was that it constituted a swipe at Catholics, who were seen in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Low Church types as a collection of drunkards.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />We all know about the </span>disastrous<span style="font-family: inherit;"> attempt at enforcing Prohibition in the USA in the twentieth century, but Christians everywhere had been campaigning for years against alcohol. In Wales the Methodists and other Low Church types succeeded in steering through the British parliament </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act 1881, an Act of Parliament that banned the sale of alcohol in Welsh pubs on the Sabbath.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">As elsewhere, such a prohibition merely invited normal people to find a way around the law. Perhaps the best example </span></span><span style="line-height: 18px;">occurred</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"> a few years after the Act became law. I</span></span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">n 1893 residents of Grangetown, near Cardiff, created a </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">invitation-only </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;">private members club called the Hotel de Marl. This hotel took the form of a</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18px;"> pit dug in a field, furnished with a carpet. A legal case confirmed the club's legal right to serve alcohol. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Here's a photograph of the </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Hotel de Marl, a testament to the ingenuity of ordinary people faced by the legally enforced Christian desire to control people's right to enjoy themselves (even though it doesn't look a whole lot of fun!)</span></span><br />
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<img alt="Hotel de Marl" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54437000/jpg/_54437633_hoteldemarl464.jpg" height="261" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; line-height: 16px; position: relative;" width="464" /><br />
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Below is a bit more information from http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-14136013<br />
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<h1 class="story-header" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #505050; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 2.461em; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 34px; margin: 3px -160px 13px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; width: 623px;">
130 years since Sunday drinking was banned in Wales</h1>
<span class="byline" style="background-color: white; border-bottom-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; color: #505050; display: block; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; margin: -1px -160px 21px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 12px; position: relative;"><span class="byline-name" style="display: block; font-size: 1.231em; font-weight: bold; margin-bottom: 0px; padding-bottom: 2px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility;">By Neil Prior</span><span class="byline-title" style="display: block; margin-bottom: 0px;">BBC News, Wales</span></span><br />
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<img alt="Members of the congregation arrive for the Sunday service at the Saron Chapel, Ebbw Vale, Wales" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54412000/jpg/_54412539_ebbw.jpg" height="261" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="464" /><span style="display: block; width: 464px;">Members of the congregation arrive for the Sunday service at the Saron Chapel, Ebbw Vale in August 1952</span></div>
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Related Stories</h2>
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<li style="background-image: none; font-size: 1em; margin: 0px 0px 8px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-rendering: auto;"><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/3086557.stm" style="color: #4a7194; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none;">Time called on drink ban rule</a></li>
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<div class="introduction" id="story_continues_1" style="background-color: white; clear: left; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 1.077em; font-weight: bold; line-height: 18px; margin-bottom: 18px; padding: 0px; text-rendering: auto;">
One-hundred and thirty years ago this month, William Gladstone's Liberal government passed an act which would change the culture, politics, and even the architecture of Wales, for over a century.</div>
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Sponsored by prominent Welsh nonconformists in the Liberal party, such as future Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the Sunday Closing (Wales) Act 1881 banned the sale of alcohol in Welsh pubs on the Sabbath.</div>
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It would not be repealed until 1961, when each county was charged with holding a referendum on Sunday opening, to gauge support in their particular area.</div>
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While urban districts such as Swansea, Cardiff and Merthyr ditched the ban at the earliest possible opportunity, many rural and Welsh-speaking counties held on to "dry" Sundays.</div>
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“<span style="display: block; margin: 0px 0px 5px; text-indent: -5000px;">Start Quote</span></h2>
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On the one hand people welcomed the opportunity for a pint while they were off work, but on the other it was symbolic of the death of a little bit of Welshness”</div>
</blockquote>
<span class="quote-credit" style="clear: both; display: block; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">Robin Hughes</span><span class="quote-credit-title" style="clear: both; display: block; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">Clerk of Pwllheli Town Council</span></div>
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Dwyfor - now part of Gwynedd - was the last district to drop the ban in 1996.</div>
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But Robin Hughes, clerk of Pwllheli Town Council, remembers that it wasn't a particularly contentious issue, with only nine percent of the local population turning out for the referendum.</div>
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"There were those on the extremes of the debate," he says.</div>
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"People involved in tourism argued that the ban was killing pretty much the only trade in the county, while the chapels thought getting rid of it was going to destroy the moral fibre of the area."</div>
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"Most of us had mixed feelings. On the one hand people welcomed the opportunity for a pint while they were off work, but on the other it was symbolic of the death of a little bit of Welshness, that made us a unique, tight-knit community."</div>
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<strong style="line-height: 16px;">Welsh identity</strong></div>
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The act was the first piece of Wales-only legislation passed by Westminster since the 1542 Act of Union, and was the first recognition in law of a distinct Welsh identity.</div>
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<img alt="Hotel de Marl" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54437000/jpg/_54437633_hoteldemarl464.jpg" height="261" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="464" /><span style="display: block; width: 464px;">Hotel de Marl - the outdoor drinking club in Cardiff which made legal history</span></div>
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At the time more than half the people of Wales belonged to a nonconformist chapel, yet members of the Church of England still enjoyed legal and social privileges.</div>
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Thus the Sunday Closing Act was celebrated in Wales as an important step on the road to disestablishing the Anglican church and getting the nonconformist chapels recognised on the same footing.</div>
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But Sunday closing also had a variety of unexpected effects, which historian and former BBC Wales producer John Trefor thinks may have helped to shape Wales as we know it.</div>
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"It was a victory, not only for the chapels and the temperance leagues, but for Welsh identity," he says.</div>
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"There was a sense that things could be done differently here. Wales-only Education and cemetery acts came soon after, and in many respects it established the principle on which devolution and the National Assembly are based."</div>
<div class="caption body-narrow-width" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #505050; display: inline; float: right; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; margin: 0px -160px 16px 16px; position: relative;">
<img alt="Newbridge Memo" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54383000/jpg/_54383990_stute_front1.jpg" height="171" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="304" /><span style="display: block; width: 304px;">Working men's halls thrived when pubs were closed on Sundays in Wales</span></div>
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Mr Trefor wonders if there were some unintended, but beneficial, consequences to the act.</div>
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"It all came about around the same time as the first wave of Italian immigration into the Valleys. So, with the pubs shut on a Sunday, the 'Bracchi' or Italian coffee shop and ice-cream parlour, became fixed in Welsh culture as a meeting place.</div>
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"Without the coffee shop, would Dylan Thomas have been the same writer?"</div>
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He also notes that an act which only applied to public houses gave a boost to private members' clubs, which became more than just drinking establishments.</div>
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"Around this time you see the boom in workingmen's halls, a key part of which were their libraries," he says.</div>
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"So there's a new generation of self-educated working men, who start sharing their ideas and forming more effective and radical political movements and unions."</div>
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But not all private members clubs were so grand and lofty in their ideals.</div>
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<a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-14136013#story_continues_3" style="font-weight: bold; left: -5000px; position: absolute; text-decoration: none; top: -5000px;"><span style="color: black;">Continue reading the main story</span></a><br />
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“<span style="display: block; margin: 0px 0px 5px; text-indent: -5000px;">Start Quote</span></h2>
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A rude and elementary type but still a club, as much as the best and most exclusive in the country.”</div>
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<span class="quote-credit" style="clear: both; display: block; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">Stipendiary magistrate</span><span class="quote-credit-title" style="clear: both; display: block; margin: 0px 0px 8px;">ruling in favour of the Hotel de Marl</span></div>
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In 1893 residents of Grangetown, then a village distinct from Cardiff, won a landmark court ruling after they'd dug a pit in a field, spread out a carpet, and declared themselves to be an invitation-only private members club called the Hotel de Marl.</div>
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At the time members' clubs were allowed to serve, but not sell alcohol, a rule which the ad hoc Hotel de Marl got around by laying an old newspaper on the ground, into which members could throw donations.</div>
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After taking two days to consider his verdict, the magistrate found in the Hotel de Marl's favour, ruling that they had indeed met the criteria of a members club, albeit: "A rude and elementary type but still a club, as much as the best and most exclusive in the country."</div>
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However, the Marquis of Bute, whose land the Hotel de Marl had been using, was so outraged, that he threatened action for trespass against the "members".</div>
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By then the genie was out of the bottle, as an investigation by the Western Mail, a Cardiff-based newspaper, in 1892 found 3,000 people drinking on one Sunday in over 450 illegal drinking dens, or shebeens, across Cardiff.</div>
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Licensees protested to a Royal Commission into the Act in 1889 that the illegal drinking trade was killing legitimate public houses; as after people had visited a shebeen on a Sunday, they never returned to the pub during the rest of the week.</div>
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<img alt="Part of a temperance poster from 1880, published in Ruabon, Denbighshire" src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54438000/jpg/_54438083_temperance299.jpg" height="299" style="-webkit-user-select: none; border: 0px; font-style: italic; letter-spacing: 0px; position: relative;" width="224" /><span style="display: block; width: 224px;">Part of a temperance poster from 1880, published in Ruabon, Denbighshire</span></div>
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However, while researching his book Real Heritage Pubs of Wales, Mick Slaughter found plenty of evidence to suggest that in fact the opposite was true.</div>
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"When you look for the evidence of the Sunday closing laws in the architecture of our pubs, there's two things that strike you: the number of tiny household pubs, and the number of pubs which were converted around this time, in order to offer accommodation," he says.</div>
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"Hotels, like private members clubs, were exempt from the act, but they had to have separate public and residents' bars. A lot of these have been knocked through into one today, but you can still make out the different entrances.</div>
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"It's hard to believe that there was suddenly a huge boom in tourism - especially in poor industrial areas - so you can only presume that there was some sort of fiddle going on, whereby rooms were ostensibly let out to Sunday drinkers."</div>
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"The tiny pubs are a particularly Welsh phenomenon. They started out as front-room shebeens, but went legitimate because there was far too much money to be made to risk being shut down."</div>
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"You only have to look at the amount of money poured at this time, into building some of the most famous and grand pubs in Wales, to see that drinking was big business. Making something harder to do makes it desirable."</div>
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"It's now, with all our choice and liberal licensing, that the pub is really under threat," he adds.</div>
</div>
Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com69tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-77759749980319222612014-05-04T00:49:00.000-07:002014-05-04T00:49:24.222-07:00An Open letter to the Editor, The Archers, BBC Radio 4.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Sean O’Connor</div>
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Editor, The Archers.</div>
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BBC Radio 4</div>
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5 April 2014</div>
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Dear Mr O’Connor,<o:p></o:p></div>
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As you have had a few months to settle into your new post, I
wonder if it might be the right time to bring the Archers into the twenty-first century
in one important respect.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We all know that the BBC in its Charter has a mandate to act as a propaganda
arm for mainstream religion, but perhaps
the time has come for BBC drama to be excused this duty - after all the Charter refers explicitly to religious services. There are many areas on the BBC radio where exaggerated
deference is still shown to Christian belief, and I suspect that most people are
ready to hear a more realistic version of village life.</div>
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Over the last thirty years or so, Ambridge has seen a
succession of vicars. They have all been attractive, dedicated, liberal characters – just as they are across all of Radio 4. If you know any vicars, or if you read national
or local newspapers, you will know that this does not reflect reality. </div>
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At one end of the spectrum, real
vicars are often barely Christians at all. To friends they will generally admit quite freely that they do not
believe in nonsense like the Virgin Birth or the Resurrection. Some of them
laugh at the simpletons who do believe such things. At the other end of the spectrum are conservatives, with no doubts at all, who espouse traditional Christian views: generally they barely conceal their homophobia, misogyny and racism. There are some very strange people indeed wearing dog collars - openly manipulating their female parishioners, hearing supernatural voices, speaking in tongues, preaching hell-fire, exorcising demons and so on.</div>
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In between, in the middle of the spectrum, real vicars are sometimes unpleasant characters. Some commit
frauds and other crimes. Some are pedophiles. Some beat their wives – so many
in fact that there is a special support organization dedicated to the support
of battered clerical wives. Others have adulterous affairs. Real vicars are often involved in
legal disputes with their own bishops, their own organists, their own choirs or
their own churchwardens. They are also often accused of having influenced the
wills of dying parishioners – a charge that has been common continuously over nearly 2000
years. Real vicars might watch porn and swear. A surprising proportion of vicars are atheists –
they have lost their faith but carry on a pretence because they could never
find another job in the real world (we know this because they will often admit
it after they retire). Non-belief is so common that there are confidential support organisations
for non-believing priests. Real vicars have skeletons in their cupboards. Some are alcoholics. Some take hard drugs. Some do little else but read out a standard sermon from the pulpit once a week. If your sole source
of information about the Anglican Church were the Archers, you would never
guess any of this. The picture painted is not merely 30 years out of date but also massively sanitized. Ambridge vicars are always caring, sensitive, responsible, liberal
individuals completely free of spite, sexual peccadilloes, human weaknesses and criminal tendencies. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The same is true of Ambridge villagers. Nearly all of them go to
church – unlike the residents of any real village. At major Christian festivals like
Christmas and Easter we are always treated to unadulterated Christian propaganda –
listening in on Church services scripted to be as moving as possible. Ambridge
must be unique in Britain in having a conventional church that appeals to young people. Not one of the
youngsters in Ambridge regards the Church as an absurd anachronism - another strong contrast to reality. The sort of
characters who really might attend church, old women like Peggy Archer, are now made out to be wholly sympathetic. They
are not like real church-going eighty year-olds, people like the embarrassing grannies many of us are familiar with: vicious, vocally Christian, anti-Semitic, homophobic and racist, still opposed to women priests, streaming with bile, and incandescent with
rage at the idea of same-sex marriage. Some years ago, poor old Peggy was vaguely bemused by the idea of women vicars, but she soon came round to the BBC's approved progressive liberal view. She is also unrealistic quiescent about having openly homosexual relatives. She exhibits not a hint of anti-Semitism or racism. </div>
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Unlike the
real world, there no noticeable friction between High Church Anglicans and Low
Church Anglicans. In Ambridge, Christians all rub along in perfect harmony without
ever accusing each other of being obscurantist flesh-eating Papists or heretical Presbyterian iconoclasts, as
they do in the real world. There is not a single Catholic believer in Ambridge for Anglicans to
accuse of pseudo-magical hocus-pocus, as in real life. No Christian burns effigies of other Christians every year as they do in real villages, such as Lewes. Neither do we ever hear of a single wing-nut Evangelical or Pentecostalist in Borcetshire. No Christian parents indoctrinate children with Fundamentalist nonsense, a common and increasing problem in the real world. In Ambridge as in the rest of the Radio 4 fantasy-world, BBC Christians all fit onto just one quarter of the real-world Christian spectrum. We never hear of the quarter in the super-woolley end <span style="font-family: inherit;">represented by </span><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">in the real world by the likes of </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">Bishop </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">Richard Holloway, nor the half of the spectrum at the other end </span></span><span style="line-height: 18.200000762939453px;">represented</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 18.200000762939453px;"> by traditionalists obsessed by sin and sex. There is not a single creationist in Borcetshire.</span></span></span></div>
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Again, unlike real villages, Ambridge boasts only one atheist – Jim – an eccentric
who, despite his rationalism and education, never voices any rational argument against
Christianity, and is easily manipulated by the vicar. Caroline who used to be a non-believer, now never voices any religious opinion. In the real world dozens of characters in a village like Ambridge would have abandoned their faith over the last thirty years. In Ambridge the total tally of apostates is nil. No one ever criticizes the Church, or laughs at Christian
doctrine, or ridicules church-goers – not even in private – another unique feature of Ambridge. No-one ever
complains about the constitutional advantages or massive tax breaks enjoyed by
Churches. No one ever mentions all the exemptions negotiated by the Churches for
themselves, excusing themselves from complying with equality legislation. In
Ambridge, no one is ever forced to sell their house becaus<span style="font-family: inherit;">e of <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-26373756" rel="nofollow" style="line-height: 18px;" target="_blank">chancel repair liability</a>, having</span> to pay legally-enforced arcane
Church fees of hundreds of thousands of pounds to fund repairs to the local church –
another scandal restricted to the real world.</div>
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Joe Grundy used to hold the traditional belief that the
Bible was true in a literal sense: Adam and Eve, Noah’s Flood, Talking Donkeys ... all of it. When and why did he stop believing all that? And when did he abandon his
Methodism? Did the Methodist membership collapse in Ambridge as it did
everywhere else, but without anyone noticing? Why do we not see Anglican Church membership collapsing too, as it is in almost every real village across the country?<o:p></o:p></div>
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When Alan, the present vicar, married Usha, a Hindu, there were two
interesting consequences, one scripted and one in real life. The scripted one
was some strange soul-searching by Schula and others. No-one objected for racist
reasons. No-one lost their faith as a result. No-one threatened the vicar with
violence. In the real world many Christian listeners were outraged and wrote in
to the BBC to complain about the unrealistic blasphemy of an Anglican vicar
marrying someone other than another Christian. These real Christians (who
apparently had no idea that in real life several vicars had already married
members of other religions) provided a striking counterpoint to Ambridge
Christians. A bit of thoughtful soul-searching for Ambridge Christians. Nasty-minded foam-flecked bigotry from real-life Christians. If you look at the news on the BBC you will see that in the real world, there are plenty of racist, misogynist, homophobic Christians making anonymous death threats to pretty much anyone not fitting their model of a traditional Christian. In the re<span style="font-family: inherit;">al world men like </span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #404040; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 15.180000305175781px;">John Sentamu, the black Archbishop of York, </span></span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1501148/Archbishop-of-York-reveals-his-anger-at-racist-letters.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="color: #404040;"><span style="line-height: 15.180000305175781px;">receive</span></span><span style="color: #404040; font-family: inherit;"><span style="line-height: 15.180000305175781px;"> </span></span></a></span><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1501148/Archbishop-of-York-reveals-his-anger-at-racist-letters.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: inherit;">exc</span>rement and anonymous abuse through the post</a>. Like women vicars, their crime, according to their fellow Christian correspondents, is to occupy Church offices while not being white men. In Ambidge, neither female vicars nor Usha, the vicar's Hindu wife, receive offensive mail. Usha once experienced a racist incident, but of course it was not religiously motivated. There are no right-wing extremist Christians in Ambridge, just as there are no rabid religious types casting around for excuses to challenge equality legislation. Such unattractive beings intrude only into the real world, not into Radio 4.</div>
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So, please Mr O’Connor, may we have a more realistic, up-to-date, unsanitised version of Christianity in Ambridge in the future. Apart from anything else you have been missing hundreds of interesting story lines that resonate with reality.</div>
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Yours faithfully</div>
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James McDonald</div>
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Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com201tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-36787783071724233672014-04-30T06:20:00.000-07:002014-04-30T06:20:46.613-07:00Our Christian Inheritance<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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As part of the “we are a Christian nation” debate in Britain, both sides have accepted that our modern culture is founded on a distinctive Christian tradition. This obviously suits the Christian argument, but why would any secularist accept it? Part of the reason is that it is not a necessary part of the secular argument. Whether or not modern British attitudes are an inheritance from Christian times is irrelevant to the question of whether modern Britain is a Christian nation. It could be that modern society has grown out of a Christian culture, and yet is not now remotely Christian. </div>
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The secularists are right in their reasoning: the question of the Christian inheritance is irrelevant for the purpose of the “Christian nation” debate. But the extent and nature of our Christian inheritance is an interesting question in its own right. <span style="text-align: left;">Exactly what aspects of modern British culture do we owe to Christianity?</span></div>
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Well let’s start by looking at the aspects of British culture that are most distinctive. First, tolerance. Where does the British love of tolerance come from? Well the first thing we can say is that it most definitely did not come from the Christian Church. For many centuries, the Christian Church killed anyone who disagreed with its doctrines. The Catholic Church did so before the Reformation in Britain. Protestants did so to a more limited extent after the Reformation. Both did so during the Reformation. Both imposed censorship. Both burned books. Both considered it an offence to fail to attend church or to pay Church taxes. Both opposed every attempt at liberalization. Our tradition of tolerance is entirely secular, defined in its modern form by men the Church regarded as its enemies: men like Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin, following the tradition of Voltaire, whom the Church also considered an enemy. </div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So, not tolerance then. How about our modern concept of Justice? There are two main forms of law in the world: Common Law systems based on the English secular system, and Civil Law systems based on Roman Law. Church law is based on the Roman Law system so we have a simple comparison of the two legal traditions in England: Common Law against Church Law. All the features of the modern English legal system of which English law jurisdictions are so proud come from the secular Common Law. All of them. All of our familiar safeguards: trial by jury, open courts, the right to defense council, the right to hear and challenge prosecution evidence, the right to remain silent, the doctrine of double jeopardy, the concept of equality before the law, and so on. Significantly, all the safeguards built into the (amended) American Constitution are safeguards against the excesses of Cannon Law, not Common Law. Cannon law gave preference to certain groups, recognized no right of silence, and allowed torture to ensure that the accused could not remain silent. The concept of bastardy - punishing children for supposed sin of their parents - was just one, typical, invention of cannon law.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But what about all the social reforms? Wasn't the Church behind all those well-known social reforms? Didn't we all learn at school about great Christian reformers like William Wilberforce, Elizabeth Fry, Lord Shaftsbury and Florence Nightingale. Yes we did, but we were not told the full story. No-one asked or answered the question of why we needed reform after 1500 years during which Christian morality reigned supreme and unchallenged? Why was reform not carried out as soon as the Church became dominant? Why did we have to wait until secular ideas had already challenged Christian ideas, and become popular? Why did no one mention the names of the most influential reformers: all of them opposed by right-thinking Christians. Dozens of them are never mentioned in school classrooms: Thomas Paine opposed slavery two generations before William Wilberforce. Paine, “The Greatest Englishman”, was also the first to propose old age pensions. He was not a Christian so he was simply written out of school history. Utilitarian philosophers were far more influential than all Christian reformers put together, but you’re unlikely to have heard at school of the social reforms driven by J S Mill or Jeremy Bentham. You have probably never heard of Annie Bessant, Richard Carlile or Charles Bradlaugh. You might have heard of some Quakers who led reforms (Elizabeth Fry, John Howard, the Rowntrees, the Cadburies, and many more). You were probably taught that they were admirable Christians, as they were. But you almost certainly did not hear that they were all opposed by mainstream Christians, and condemned as infidels, as were all other reformers. Mainstream Christians opposed not just Utilitarians but atheists, Deists, Pantheists, socialists and a few fringe Christian evangelicals like Wilberforce. The bench of Bishops in the House of Lords voted together against every reform Bill put before parliament in the nineteenth century: child labour, safety at work, minimum wages, working hours, penal reform, women’s rights, extending the franchise - every single field of reform without exception. Churches and individual bishops were furious at having to lose their slaves when slavery was abolished, and hardly mollified by monetary compensation from the government for their loss. How did your history master miss that one?</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The story is much the same in every area you can think of. The Church traditionally considered education as something for the rich and for those destined for a career in the Church. Catholic churchmen were outraged when they discovered that ordinary people were teaching themselves to read translations of the bible in the sixteenth century. Protestant churchmen were outraged to discover that ordinary people were teaching themselves to read the works of Thomas Paine in the late Eighteenth. The idea of Church schools for ordinary people was an innovation designed expressly to contain the problem in the nineteenth century (better to indoctrinate boys in biblical writings than let them alone and risk them chosing for themselves what they read). The idea of teaching girls at all was anathema to everything the Church stood for. The main reason for not allowing women to recieve MAs at Oxford and Cambridge was specifically religious - An MA makes the holder a member of Convocation, a University body "holding authority over men", something that the bible says must not happen. Our only educational tradition still retained in modern British schools is the convention of misrepresenting the respective Christian and the secular contributions to reform.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But what about other areas of learning. Universities were originally religious foundations, designed like all educational establishments, to educate the rich and potential clergymen. No significant scientific advances were made in Universities in any field while the Church dominated their activities. Within the Church, any original thinkers across Europe were condemned as heretics. If you can think of any major advance in the millennium 500 - 1500, you will almost certainly find that it falls into one of three categories: rediscovered from classical times, introduced from non-Christian lands, or developed in Europe by a heretic condemned by the Christian Church.<br />
<br />
Research was prohibited. The purpose of a University was indoctrination, not research. In the seventeenth century research became the field of wealthy independent noblemen, who created private societies to do what the universities were failing to do. The same story applied to philosophy. Significantly, Church philosophy is now of historical interest only. All modern major schools of philosophy, some based on classical pagan philosophies, are entirely secular. All modern advances in ethics – such as the concept of animal rights – are likewise entirely secular.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
There are a few reminders of our Christian inheritance. At the benign end of the spectrum are church bells and soaring language of the Book of Common Prayer for public ceremonies. But most vestiges are not benign. We have senior clergymen concealing serious crimes, preaching homophobia and misogyny, telling lies about contraception, and interfering in politics. We still have bishops in the House of Lords, arranging for Church exemptions for themselves from all forms of equality legislation. In England, we still have people forced to sell their houses to pay surprise fees imposed by their Anglican parish church. We still have children denied medical attention by their Christian parents. We still have people, often children, killed during “exorcisms”. And of course we still have a host of Christian inspired laws that restrict what we can do on Sundays.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In truth, our Christian inheritance is relatively small and almost all unwelcome. Pretty much everything we have that is worth having comes not from Christian tradition but from opposition to Christian tradition. </div>
<br />
It’s not much of a record for the Churches to shout about.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com124tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-74303270327481042302014-04-27T22:45:00.002-07:002014-04-27T22:45:51.037-07:00Non-Overlapping Magisteria<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Christians have made numerous
of claims that have turned out to be wrong. Everyone knows about a few of them: the
age of the earth, where biblical stories came from, how the diversity of life
on earth arose, the impossibility of an Australasian continent, the biblical
chronology, the nature of disease, and the structure of the solar system are a
few examples.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Up until the late Middle Ages,
Christians believed that science was entirely consistent with Christianity.
According to the orthodox line God had written two books: the Bible and the
natural world. Truth cannot contradict truth, so it followed that the two books
must necessarily be fully in accord. If they appeared not to be, then that was
because of our limited understanding.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
By the end of the Enlightenment this
position had become untenable for educated Christians. It was clear that the
bible did contradict the evidence of the natural world. By the time
Darwin published his Origin of Species the case was already closed, although
the shouting continued. It continues today, although the number of biblical
literalists in the West is now minute outside the most backward parts of the
USA.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The only realistic reaction to the growing realization
that nature and the Bible contradicted each other was religious retreat. Very
slowly Churchmen started acknowledging, often in a round-about way, that
Christianity did not provide some of the answers. The bible had traditionally been
a comprehensive encyclopedia of all world knowledge. Now it was something less
than that.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
One solution to the problem, as
religious minds saw it, was the idea of “non-overlapping magisterial”. In this
solution the Church accepted that it had overstepped itself in the past and had
erred. It had trespassed into areas where it had no dominion. There were two
separate areas of teaching: science addressed questions of how things are as
they are, and Christianity addressed questions of why things are as they are.
According to this idea, science and religion occupy two fundamentally different
and distinct domains of inquiry, two inherently different kinds of knowledge, two non-overlapping magisteria.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This idea has found a number of
supporters, including some in the scientific community. In principle it appeals
to accommodating types who would like to see science and religion get along
together. Stephen J Gould for example was an advocate, though he seems never
to have fully thought it through.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The weakness is that the idea
only works if the Church makes a full retreat. There are Church leaders who
have tried to make such a retreat. Liberal theologians are safely ensconced in
a world where Christianity makes no claims about real historical events, or
about anything testable. For them the virgin birth and the resurrection are
true only in some vague mysterious non-factual sense. God’s revelation is inherently
ineffable. Their position is not unassailable, but for present purposes we will
leave them in the safety of their mystical island far removed from the worlds
of science and reality.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
For Christians other than the
most ethereal divines, the solution of non-overlapping magisterial does not
work. Traditional Christian doctrine cannot help leaking out of its own magisterium
and into the scientific magisterium.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
First, it is necessary to
redefine a whole host of traditional ideas. Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell can no
longer be real places in the physical universe, at a known distance from the
surface of the earth, which can be visited, heard or seen by living people in
the flesh as they used to be. (In the 1960’s space exploration was opposed by
Christians on the grounds that astronauts were trespassing in heaven. One
Russian Cosmonaut countered that he’d had a look and God wasn't there. On the
internet you can easily find Christian websites claiming to have recordings of
the screams of souls in hell, but this is now considered eccentric even by
other Christians). <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Similarly, Christians had to give
up the traditional idea that the soul was a physical organ in the body. (It had
been thought to be, or to be part of, the pineal gland). Research to find it
stopped, as did experiments to establish its mass by weighing human bodies just
before and just after death. The bonus here was that if we cannot find the
soul, then we have no chance of seeing the various stamps that God puts on it
to mark the sacraments it has undergone.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
On the other hand all sorts of
supernatural phenomena are able to remain on the grounds that they are not
physical. So we can keep angels, demons, ghosts, sanctification, transubstantiation,
life-after-death, and religious experiences – as long as we define them in such
a way that they are inherently untestable. As has been observed before, this
involves a degree of intellectual dishonesty. No philosopher, other than tame
theologians, would accept that the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation is
even meaningful, let alone true.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This opens up another problem for
the non-overlapping magisterial theory. In which of the magisteria does
philosophy sit? In medieval times philosophy was a branch of theology, but it bore no
fruit, withered away, and is now studied only by historians. Modern philosophy
is overwhelmingly secular, and has comprehensively discredited every attempt to
reinvent theological philosophy. None of the traditional “proofs” of the
existence of God survived the Enlightenment. If the Churches had accepted the loss of all philosophical territory then the two magisteria would not overlap. But the Churches have not retreated. There are still University departments of philosophy run by theologians. The Catholic Church is still formally attached to the long-discredited Medieval philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas. And Christians regularly cite medieval "proofs" of God's existence that no reputable philosopher has espoused for centuries. The two magisteria do overlap because Christians have refused to move away from the territory they lost long ago.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There is another problem here.
Most Christians are not willing to retreat into the territory of their own
magisterium. For example those angels and demons are alright as long as they
don’t do anything. But what if they do. What if demons start possessing people,
and taking over their behaviour, and need exorcising. Now you might think that the mainstream
Churches had abandoned such ideas long ago. But they have not. All mainstream
Churches still employ exorcists to deal with naughty demons who possess
believers (oddly, these demons only ever possess believers). The phenomenon of demons
possessing people is by its nature one that can be investigated scientifically.
Whoops. The two magisterial just overlapped again.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
And there are other overlaps.
The efficacy of petitionary prayer can be tested. It has been tested and shown
to be totally ineffective – but the fact that it can be tested places it in the
science magisterium. There are any number of examples like this. Christians who
claim to be able to determine the moment of a person’s death (an ability denied
to all general practitioners of medicine). Holy relics that work miracles. Christians
who can “feel” the sanctity of a sanctified place, and so on.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Yet another problem is that of
religious experience. Neuro-scientists have found that by electronically
stimulating a certain part of the brain they can generate experiences that the
subject regards as “religious”. As you might expect, people of difference
religious traditions enjoy different experiences, so that Christians enjoy
typically Christian experiences. In which magisterium does this belong? A
scientific experiment about religious experience is not easy to place fully in
either magisterium. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The whole idea of non-overlapping
magisterial is weak as long as Christians continue to make any
substantial claims at all.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Now, let’s go back to those
liberal theologians who thought they were safe on their remote island of fuzzy
thinking and no substantial claims about anything. The central concept in Christianity is the doctrine of Original Sin.
No matter that it was invented well after the time of Jesus. No matter that it
lacks rational coherence. It is central to Christianity. The doctrine goes like
this: Adam and Eve sinned by eating of the Tree of Knowledge. Their sin was so
great that (for some reason that has never been articulated) God needed to
sacrifice himself in order to expiate such a great sin. Here’s the problem:
this central idea depends on a real event, where real people committed a real sin. But
our liberal theologians on their island accept that Adam and Eve did not really
exist. If they did not exist then they did not sin. And if they did not sin, then
there was no sin to expiate, and no need for the crucifixion of resurrection.
In other words the whole foundation of Christianity is removed. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The upshot is that those liberal
theologians have not found a safe refuge after all. The two magisteria do overlap, and
always will as long as Christianity holds to its most central doctrine.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com65tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-84126636146076311862014-04-24T06:38:00.000-07:002014-04-24T06:38:12.319-07:00Christian Protocol for Twitter<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">Standard Christian Protocol </span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;">for Conducting Discussions with Atheists on Twitter </span><br />
<br />
<br />
It has come to our attention that one or two Christians have been trying to conduct rational discussions on Twitter. This is a gross breach of the established conventions, comparable in its enormity to the traditional Christian crime of scientific enquiry, <i>curiositas</i>.<br />
<br />
Here is a reminder of the proper, well established, way for Christians to conduct themselves on Twitter and other social media.<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>Make assertions that are unverifiable, presenting them as objective facts that can be easily be confirmed.</li>
<li>Misunderstand or purport to misunderstand all rational responses.</li>
<li>Conceal the fact that you are employing your own definitions of common words (for example presuming that the word atheist is interchangeable with Communist, satanist and evolutionary scientist.) </li>
<li>Display a wilful level of ignorance on the topic at hand, and especially on the Bible, Christian teaching before 2000, evolutionary science, history, philosophy, textual criticism and critical thinking.</li>
<li>Employ easily-spotted flawed reasoning, such as circular arguments and non-sequiturs, attack straw-men, and make a point of confusing adequate and necessary conditions. You must also presume causality from correlation whenever possible (unless to so compromises your position).</li>
<li>Once you lose the argument, you must concede in one of two permissible ways (see below)</li>
<li>Block the people who have confounded you.</li>
<li>Tweet your followers, misrepresenting the exchange and claiming victory.</li>
</ol>
<b><br /></b>
<b>The two permissible ways of conceding an argument:</b><br />
<ul>
<li>Express your Christian delight at the prospect of the other party burning in Hell for all eternity. Or if you are the more sophisticated passive aggressive type then</li>
<li>Say that you are praying for the other party (even though you have not the slightest intention of doing so)</li>
</ul>
You may, at any stage, complain that anyone who responds to you is persecuting you because of your faith. You may also presume to speak on behalf of your God, even in direct contradiction to the Bible or the teachings of your own Church.<br />
<br />
Please follow these simple conventions. You don't want to stand out from your fellow believers. And always bear in mind that great traditional Christian injunction: "Reason is the Devil's Whore".<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com184tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-21744809713008840612014-04-21T22:50:00.001-07:002014-04-24T07:07:27.739-07:00Christian Morality <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
We hear from time to time about
Christian morality, its uniqueness and its superiority over other moralities.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
The area is an interesting one,
and for several reasons. Let’s first look at the uniqueness of Christian
morality. We can broadly identify three areas of morality and it is revealing
to look at them separately.<br />
<br />
First are areas of morality that
pretty much everyone will agree on – such as the principle that we should not lie or steal. The
golden rule (“do unto others …”) is familiar in many cultures and predates
Jesus by centuries. By definition these moral principles are not specifically Christian, and need not
detain us.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Second are areas where Christian
morality has changed. There are two striking things about these. The first is
that there are so many of them. The other is that the change has always been
away from biblical religious morality towards secular humanist morality. A few of
hundreds of examples where Churches were once in favour and are now against
are: slavery, the inferiority of women, capital offences for biblical crimes,
child labour, child marriage, and genocide. Examples where Churches were once
against and are now in favour include scientific medical treatment, democracy, labour
laws, and penal reform. In many cases the traditional Christian position was,
by widely accepted modern secular standards wrong, and often diametrically
wrong. In a few cases the position was not so much wrong as arbitrary. Examples
here might be drinking alcohol (non-conformists), shopping on a Sunday, or
reading the bible.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Third are areas where there is a
genuine moral question. For example the question of whether cannibalism is ever
justified, and what should one do when faced by “Sophie’s Choice” (the case
where you face a dilemma such as the choice of saving one or another of your two children. If you
refuse to make a choice then both will die). Another real example is a dilemma
faced by Winston Churchill during the Second World War: you know that the enemy
will attack a particular city tonight and kill thousands of innocent citizens.
If you warn them the enemy will know that you have broken their secret code, in
which case they will change the code and cut off a critical source of
information. What do you do?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The fascinating thing about these
moral dilemmas is that specifically Christian morality is of no practical use
at all. Most people would take a practical utilitarian approach of the “lesser of
two evils”. Christian moralists have always disagreed with each other, and the
best the Catholic Church has managed is to dress up the “lesser of two evils” idea
in Christian garb. In its Catholic dress it is known as “the principle of
double effect” – the idea was set out by Thomas Aquinas, but in such a way that
Catholic theologians have been arguing about it ever since. (A few years ago
the principle of double effect could not be applied to aborting ectopic
pregnancies, but now it can be, and is, even in Catholic hospitals).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Fourth there a single moral
principle that is distinctively Christian. According to the Bible it was taught
by Jesus himself. The principle is “Resist not evil”. Shelley, an atheist as well as a poet, was scathing
about this distinctive Christian teaching, and with reason. By all modern (ie
secular) standards it is a thoroughly immoral doctrine. It is a license for Churches to
stand by and watch innocent people suffer in pogroms, massacres, wars and genocide.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
With this single exception, Christian
morality falls into three distinct categories. In the first the moral idea is so
obvious that everyone, including non-Christians, accepts it; alternatively it
is so wrong or arbitrary that it has had to change completely, or thirdly it is no
practical help at all. In other words by modern standards traditional Christian
morality was either not distinctively Christian, or where it was distinctively Christian it
was wrong.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In recent times, secular philosophers
and psychologists have unwittingly undermined the idea of a distinctive
Christian morality. They have devised a series of thought experiments, based on
a moral problem called “The trolley problem”. These problems are carefully
designed to establish exactly what factors people take into account in making
moral decisions. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In the basic problem, there is a
runaway trolley barrelling down a railway track. Ahead of it on the track,
there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed
straight for them and will kill them. You are standing some distance away, next
to a points lever. If you pull this lever, the trolley will switch to a
different track. There is one person on this side track. You have two options: if you do nothing, the trolley will kill the
five people on the main track. If you pull the lever diverting the trolley onto
the side track, it will kill one person. Do you pull the lever or not?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The most interesting thing about this
experiment and various variations of it is that people tend to give very
similar answers to the problems irrespective of their religion. Christians give
much the same responses as atheists, pagans and people who know nothing about
Christianity. The inescapable conclusion is that far from providing a superior
moral system, the Christian Churches do not even provide a distinctive moral
system.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Other researchers have made other
interesting discoveries. Morality is a difficult thing to measure, but we can use
proxies. For example in every Christian country where statistics are available
the proportion of Christians in the prison population is significantly higher
than the percentage of Christians in the overall population. Are Christians
more criminal than non-Christians? Another study has found that Christians are
more likely than non-Christians to tell lies.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In another study a few years ago
psychologists devised an experiment where subjects encountered a slumped
groaning figure in front of them on a path. The experimenters were interested in who would stop
to offer help. Seminarians on their way to give a talk on the topic of the Good
Samaritan were no more likely than others to stop and help. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In short, there is no real
evidence that Christian morality is superior to any other in either theory or
practice, and some evidence that it is inferior. The fact that the God
of the Old Testament is now recognized as a moral monster, even by many Christians, speaks
volumes about Christian morality. Whatever the source of our morality, it cannot be a book or a god that we regard as immoral. We must be using some other standard.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<i>More information, with references</i><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The Trolley Problem <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem</a><o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
The Churches’ Moral record <a href="http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/g00_harm.htm" target="_blank">http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/g00_harm.htm</a> </div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
and <a href="http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gb0_persecution.htm" target="_blank">http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gb0_persecution.htm</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
Moral Arguments in Christianity <a href="http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/fc0_moral.htm" target="_blank">http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/fc0_moral.htm</a>
<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
</div>
Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com58tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-24213266796830223342014-04-21T01:54:00.000-07:002014-04-21T01:54:45.226-07:00Christian Family Values - The Real Ones<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Everyone knows
that the Christian Churches cherish family values. We hear about it all the
time - in schools and churches, on radio and television, and read about it in
books and newspapers. All mainstream Churches claim to follow traditional
teaching based on Jesus own life and example as described in the gospels. No
one disputes this. Or at least we almost never hear about anyone disputing it.
This is not because the claim is undisputed. It is because the media fail to
give a voice to those who do dispute it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Let’s break
the convention and look at the facts. We’ll start with Jesus’ own life as
recorded in the gospels. Theologians have long been embarrassed by the way he
spoke to his mother: “<i>Woman, what have I
to do with thee</i>” (John 2:4). The
usual explanation is that an element of curtness was unwittingly introduced in
the past by translators, but this is simply not true, as the original Greek
text or any modern academic translation will confirm. In any case, Jesus rejected
his mother more than once, just as he rejected the rest of his family. When they asked for him he denied his mother
and brothers, and said that the followers who were listening to him at the time
were his mother and brothers (Mark 3:31-35, c/f Matthew 12:48-49 and Luke
8:20-21). He denied his mother again at
the crucifixion according to one reading of John 19:27. Jesus had no qualms
about taking his disciples away from their families. The brothers James and
John abandoned their father, leaving him to manage as best he could with the
fishing nets they had been preparing together.
Earthly fathers were no more important than mothers. Jesus gave a clear
instruction to his followers “<i>call no man
your father upon the earth</i>” on the grounds that they had only one father
and that was the one in Heaven (Matthew 23:9). On one occasion, a disciple
asked permission to go and bury his dead father<i>: “But Jesus said unto him, Follow me; and let the dead bury the dead”</i>
(Matthew 8:22 c/f Luke 9:60). Jesus then refused another potential follower who
asked permission to say good-bye to his family before abandoning them (Luke
9:61-62). We learn that this attitude
was entirely in line with Jesus’ purpose<i>:
“For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter
against her mother, and the daughter in law against the mother in law”</i>
(Matthew 10:35). Jesus consistently taught that his followers should abandon
and despise their families. Everlasting
life is promised to those who leave their homes and families (Matthew 19:29,
Mark 10:29-30 and Luke 18:29-30). The
Luke author gives Jesus’ summary of his views on family life: “<i>If any man come to me, and hate not his
father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and
his own life also, he cannot be my disciple”</i> (Luke 14:26, Cf. Matthew
19:29). A similar sentiment is expressed in the non-canonical Gospel of St
Thomas</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">.
</span><span lang="EN-GB">This gospel goes further “<i>Whoever recognises his father and mother will be called the son of a
whore</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Relying on biblical
passages, early Christians inferred that family life was worthless and hailed
virginity as the ideal. Virgins were holy. Those who indulged their carnal
lusts were filthy degenerates. For the
Church Fathers, sex was an inexplicable burden, and the creation of children
was a sorrow to all. In view of this,
Christians set about the destruction of family life. Converts were lured away from their parents,
siblings, spouses, and children. The
children of rich converts were often left destitute, their inheritance being
diverted into Church coffers. This was a common complaint against Christians in
Roman times and is not unknown among Christian sects in modern times. Early
Christians discouraged new converts from communicating with non-Christian
relatives, just as some Christian sects do today. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">By the fourth
century clergymen were occasionally being expected to abandon their wives in
emulation of St Peter and the other apostles, all twelve of whom were believed
to have abandoned their wives and families.
As Pope Gregory VII put it “The church cannot escape the grip of the
laity unless priests first escape from their wives”</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">.</span><span lang="EN-GB">
Wives were often left abandoned. Many were so desperate that they were driven
to suicide. Those who were not
abandoned, if discovered by the Church authorities, were liable to be sold into
slavery. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the Middle
Ages ordinary men were encouraged to leave their wives and families. When preaching the first Crusade, Pope Urban
II cited the words of Jesus from Matthew 10:37 and 19:29: “<i>He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me…every
one that hath forsaken houses or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or
wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold,
and shall inherit everlasting life</i>”.
In other words a place in heaven was being promised to those who
abandoned their families. Preachers lured hundreds of thousands of men away
from their families to take the cross.
When St Bernard preached, women went in fear. Mothers hid their sons from him, wives their
husbands. Bernard proudly informed the
Pope of his success: “I opened my mouth; I spoke; and at once the Crusaders
have multiplied to infinity. Villages and towns are now deserted. You will
scarcely find one man for every seven women. Everywhere you will see widows
whose husbands are still alive.” Most of those women were soon to become real
widows, but no one bothered to record the numbers. We will never know how many
of them died alone of cold, hunger or old age, never knowing the fate of their
husbands and sons.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">People were
expected to put Christian duties before their duties to their family, and
inform on any deviation from orthodoxy.
It was a grave offence for a child not to inform on its sinful parents,
or for a parent not to inform on their sinful children. Children had no right to family life, and the
Church encouraged people to give their sons to the service of the Church. These
children, <i>oblates</i> as they were
called, were brought up away from their families, by monks, for the service of
the Church. We have no reason to suppose that the scale of abuse of these
children was any less than that perpetrated by Churchmen in modern times. Yet
in some ways the oblates were lucky. The Church was responsible for worse
things done to other boys. After girls had been excluded from church choirs,
the Eastern Churches hit upon the idea of using castrated boys to replace
falsetto soprano voices. The idea was
copied in Italy and Spain in the sixteenth century. Popes and Church synods declined to prohibit
castration on the pragmatic grounds that without castrati churches would remain
empty. Castrati were entertaining Popes
in the Sistine chapel into the twentieth century. It was apparently of no
consequence to the Church that these boys, when they reached adulthood, were
denied the possibility of an ordinary family life or even married life. The Church
would not let them marry, on the grounds that they were unable to father
children. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Under
Christian hegemony the position of slaves and their families was equally
questionable. Slaves required permission
from their Christian owners to marry. Men and women were owned and bred like
animals. Slave children did not belong to their parents but to their masters.
In nineteenth century America, children of slaves were still being taken from
their parents before reaching their first birthday. Far from condemning this,
priests and ministers (often slave owners themselves) condoned it. As they so
often pointed out, slavery was not merely permitted by God, it was enjoined by
God. It would be sinful <i>not</i> to
practice slavery. Once again, Christianity did not accord any value to family
life <i>per se</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries priests assured Catholic women that they
owed a greater duty to the Church than to their husbands. One consequence of
this was that they had a responsibility to help priests wanted for treason,
even if their husbands did not approve, and even if by so doing they put their
innocent husbands at risk of death. Father Henry Garnet wrote <i>a Treatise of Christian Renunciation</i>
which contained many examples of families broken asunder by religious
differences. Once again the point was clear: families were dispensable. Bonds
between husband and wife were not important. One reason for this was that love
played no part in the traditional Christian idea of marriage. Arranged
marriages were the norm when the Church controlled this area of the law, as it
did for many centuries. Under Church Law, children could be betrothed at the
age of 7. In practice marriages were often arranged at much lower ages–
sometimes months rather than years for the nobility. The traditional Anglican
marriage service reflecting Christian ideas identifies three reasons for
marriage: procreation, the avoidance of fornication, and mutual society. Love does not come into it. The Roman
Catechism is even more direct: the section on the sacrament of matrimony states
that really it would be desirable for all Christians to remain unmarried. As canon
277 of the 1983 Roman Catholic Code of Canon Law affirms:<i> Celibacy is a special gift of God. </i>Following the Church Fathers,
the pinnacle of achievement is to remain a virgin, and so not have a family at
all. St Alexis won his sainthood by abandoning his new bride on her wedding
day.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The poor were
not entitled to a family life either. In Victorian times Anglican parochial
charities found it perfectly consistent with Christian teachings to split up
the families who claimed poor relief. Husbands would be sent to one poor house,
women to another. Untold numbers of married couples were split up in this way,
never to see each other or their children again. The hereditary sick were also
undeserving of family life. When Hitler
discussed them with Cardinal Faulhaber in 1936 the two men agreed that they
were a problem, but had different approaches to it. Hitler wanted to sterilise them, but the
Cardinal had another solution. The Catholic theologian Uta Ranke-Heinemann cites
him as saying “The state, Herr Reich-chancellor, is not debarred from removing
these vermin from the national community in the interests of legitimate
self-defence and in conformity with moral law, but preventives other than
physical mutilation must be sought, and such a preventive does exist: the
internment of the hereditary sick”. He
was talking about what we now call concentration camps. The cardinal’s problem
with sterilisation was that it would allow people to enjoy sex without the risk
of procreation, contrary to the teaching of his Church. To this extent the
sterilisation option was morally unacceptable, but there was nothing wrong with
splitting up families in order to put individual members into concentration
camps. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Non-Christians
were not entitled to a family life either. When Christian missionaries failed
to make an impact on the locals they could always kidnap children so that the
next generation could be indoctrinated into the Christian faith by force. A
missionary called Symeon pioneered this method around the Euphrates in the sixth
century, scorning the objections of local villagers. Parents who objected
started to die in mysterious circumstances, and the rest gave way. The
abduction and indoctrination of children became a standard technique when
missionaries could make no impact on adults, and this technique would be used
with effect for many centuries. Children of members of any faith might be
seized by Christian authorities.
Sometimes whole families were seized.
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries Jewish families were
taken, often by force, by Christian authorities and subjected to what we would
now call brainwashing. If half of the
family converted and half did not, they were split up never to see each other
again. Sometimes wives never saw their
husbands again, sometimes parents never saw their children again. As late as 1858, acting under clerical
instructions, the Bolognia police seized a young boy, Edgardo Mortara, from his
Jewish family. Despite an international outcry the kidnapped child was kept in
Rome by the Catholic Church, and “re-educated”.
His re-education was so successful that he eventually became a
missionary priest. From the age of seven
until his death he was never to know a real family, either as son or father.
His life was regarded by the Roman Church as a great success, and presumably
still is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Jews were not
the only victims. With the complicity of the state, Christians were kidnapping
non-Christian children well into the twentieth century. This practice is generally justified by
claiming that non-Christian parents are somehow unsuitable. North American Indian children were being
taken from their families by the Canadian authorities until at least the
1950’s. Aboriginal children were being
taken from their families by the Australian authorities until the 1960’s and
put into Christian orphanages. A Roman
Catholic organisation in Switzerland was kidnapping Romany children and sending
them to be adopted by Catholic families into the 1970’s. The children were routinely told that their
parents were dead, and that they had no living relatives. The same thing was common among the
children of unmarried mothers around the world – from New Zealand to Ireland
and Brazil. Children were taken by
force, generally with the complicity of the authorities, and given up for
adoption as “orphans” to the mainstream western Churches.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In Britain
children were not taken by force, but by deception. Stigmatised single mothers
were encouraged to leave their children with Christian organisations, either to
be adopted or to be cared for until the mother could take the child back. Many
of these organisations sent children to the colonies without their parents’
consent or knowledge – even when the mothers had stated explicitly that they
would return to take their children back. The children were told, falsely, that
their parents were dead. They were described as <i>orphans</i> and they grew up believing themselves to be orphans. They
were not given their birth certificates or other identification documentation.
Sometimes they were provided with new names and even new birthdays. Sometimes
their files were burned. In some cases when parents came back to reclaim their
children they were told, again falsely, that the children were dead. In other
cases mothers were told the truth, but no effort was made to bring their
children back. Sometimes two or more brothers and sisters were sent out at the
same time. Usually they were split up – destroying the last vestige of a family
relationship. These children were to remain in institutions throughout their
childhood. When Australian families came forward to foster them, traditionalist
Churches preferred to keep the children in institutions. An official report in
Western Australia in 1959 indicated that “practically all children could be adequately
fostered if the institutions were not loath to part with them…”. The last child
migrations to Australia took place in 1967. By then between 100,000 and 150,000
children had been shipped around the world, away from their roots and their
families. As middle-aged adults, many of these “orphans” discovered in the
1980s that they were not orphans at all, and some that their parents were still
alive. Parents discovered that their children were not dead, as they had been
told. The emotional turmoil caused by this deliberate “deceit and deception”
was documented by Margaret Humphreys in her book <i>Empty Cradles</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">So there it
is. Over the centuries, Christianity has been responsible for untold millions
of abandoned wives, divided families, and stolen and disinherited children. The
current attachment to family values is an innovation, and runs contrary to both
Jesus’ teachings and the historical stance of all mainstream Churches. It is
only since the 1960’s that the Churches have found it expedient to adopt this position. As Don Cupitt, a leading liberal churchman,
noted: “The idealisation of the family is a modern cultural creation, which the
Churches have validated, and now no modern bishop would dream of publicly
endorsing Jesus’ views about the family.” Among Catholic, Anglican, Protestant,
Methodist and Baptist theologians much creative imagination goes into the
pretence that the gospels do not mean what they plainly say: that followers of
Jesus must hate their families. Except
for a few men and women who abandon their families to become hermits or
anchorites, or monks or nuns in closed orders, there are now virtually no
Christians who follow Jesus’ teaching about family life. The only significant
group keeping up the old traditions are Christian missionaries, still quietly
breaking up families around the world, telling new converts to leave their
non-Christian spouses, siblings, parents and children – just as Christian
missionaries have done since Roman times. As they will proudly tell you, they
are doing exactly what Jesus wanted them to do. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com40tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-19104412020360621092014-04-17T01:49:00.000-07:002014-05-14T22:28:30.775-07:00Christian Slavery<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoBodyText" style="text-align: justify;">
Who was responsible for the abolition of
slavery in Britain? It was William Wilberforce wasn’t it. He epitomised
Christian thought on the matter. Slavery was anathema to all right thinking
Christians. That’s what most of us were all taught at school. That’s what many
children are still being taught. Well here’s a question. If Christianity was so
opposed to the practice of slavery, why did it take well over a fourteen
hundred years for Christians to ban it? The Christian Churches were the sole
moral authorities in much of the west from the fourth century to the eighteenth
century AD. During that time the established Christian Churches had the
unquestioned power to prohibit slavery. Yet they did not prohibit it. They did
not even try. On the contrary, they supported it, authorised it and even
practised it themselves. This is not easy to square with the version of history we are so
familiar with. So let’s unpick the truth.</div>
<div class="MsoBodyText">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">From the earliest times Christians had no
doubt that slavery was divinely sanctioned. They used a number of Old and New
Testament quotations to prove their case.
Looking at the relevant passages it is clear that the Bible does indeed
endorse slavery. In the Old Testament
God approved the practice and laid down rules for buyers and sellers (Exodus
21:1-6, Leviticus 25:44). Men are at
liberty to sell their own daughters (Exodus 21:7). Slaves can be inherited (Leviticus
25:45-6). It is acceptable to beat slaves,
since they are property (Exodus 21:20).
A master who beats his slave to death is not to be punished as long as
the slave stays alive for a day or two, as the loss of the master’s property is
punishment enough:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 14.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">And if a man
smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand; he shall
be surely punished. Notwithstanding, if
he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished: for he is his money. (Exodus 21:20-21)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 14.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Do not be mislead by the word <i>servant</i> here. The Authorized Version
invariably uses the word <i>servant</i>
where the natural translation is <i>slave</i>,
in order to minimize the full import
Most modern translations use the word <i>slave</i>, a more accurate rendering of the Hebrew <i>'ebhedh</i>, Greek <i>doulos</i>.
Masters buy and sell slaves, not servants.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">If a slave is gored by a bull, it is the
master, not the slave, who is to be compensated (Exodus 21:32). Time and time again the Old Testament confirms
that slaves are property and their lives are of little consequence. To prove the strength of Job’s faith, God
sends Satan to test him by visiting disasters upon him. Among these disasters is the killing of
Job’s numerous slaves (Job 1). Neither
God, nor Satan, nor the story’s narrator finds it at all odd that people should
be killed just to prove a point – they are only Job’s property and their
destruction is naturally bracketed with the loss of his livestock and
vineyards.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The New Testament also regards slavery as
acceptable. It instructs slaves to
accept their position with humility (Ephesians 6:5-8), and to please their
masters in everything (Titus 2:9, c/f Colossians 3:22). They are commanded to serve Christian slave
owners better than other masters (1 Timothy 6:1-2). Even oppressive masters are to be obeyed
according to 1 Peter 2:18. Jesus
mentioned slavery more than once in the New Testament, but never with the slightest
hint of criticism of it. Christians
interpreted this as not merely acceptance, but approval. If Jesus had opposed
slavery he would, they claimed, surely have said so. Church Fathers instructed the faithful not to
let slaves get above themselves, and the Church endorsed St Augustine’s view
that slavery was ordained by God as a punishment for sin. Soon the Christian Church
would become the largest slave owner in the Roman Empire. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In pagan times slaves who escaped and
sought sanctuary at a holy temple would not be returned to their masters if
they had a justifiable complaint. When
the Roman Empire became Christian, escaped slaves could seek refuge in a
church, but they would always be returned to their masters, whether they had a
justifiable complaint or not. When
Christian slaves in the early Asian Church suggested that community funds might
be used to purchase their freedom, they were soon disabused of their hopes, a
line supported by Ignatius of Antioch, one of the greatest Church Fathers. He declared that their ambition should be to
become better slaves, and they should not expect the Church to gain their
liberty for them. Bishops themselves
owned slaves and accepted the usual conventions. So did other churchmen. Slave collars dating from around AD 400 have
been found in Sardinia, stamped with the sign of the cross and the name ‘Felix
the Archdeacon’ - the name of the owner, not the slave. Pagan slaves who wanted
to become Christians required permission from their masters. For many centuries, right up to modern times,
servile birth was a bar to ordination, and the Church confirmed the
acceptability of slavery in many other ways.
For example, the Church Council of Châlons in AD 813 decreed that slaves
belonging to different owners could not marry without their owners’
consent. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Church found new reasons to take people
into slavery. The Third Synod of Toledo
in AD 589 decreed that women found in the houses of a clergyman in suspicious
circumstances should be sold into slavery by the clergyman’s bishop. In attempting to enforce clerical celibacy
later popes revived the idea of taking the wives and concubines of churchmen
into slavery. Urban II tried the idea
against subdeacons’ wives in 1089. In
1095 wives of priests were sold into slavery as well. Urban’s successor, Leo IX, had priest’s wives
taken into slavery for service at the Lateran Palace. Saints, Popes and Church Officials approved
the practice of slavery for centuries.
Slavery was a major trade in Christen</span><span lang="EN-GB">dom. Until the early tenth century the main
Venetian export was slaves from central Europe.
Later the Genoese developed another major Mediterranean slave trade</span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">..</span></span><span lang="EN-GB">
In Spain a single inquisitor, Torquemada, condemned 91,371 people to
slavery.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The record of the Anglican Church was no
better than that of the Roman Church. It
was the universal opinion of churchmen that God had ordained slavery, and clergymen
had no qualms about owning slaves themselves.
Anglican slave traders were often extremely devout, and widely respected
by their fellow Christians. It never
occurred to them, or to their priests or ministers, that slave trading might be
immoral. The most famous English slave
trader, Sir John Hawkins, a particularly pious man, had slave ships named <i>Angel</i>,
<i>Jesus</i>, and <i>Grace of God</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Since they were merely property, there
could be no objection to branding slaves just like any other animal. Neither was there any obligation to treat
them more humanely than animals in other ways.
Prices depended on supply and demand like any other commodity. Female breeders would be sold at a premium
prices, especially after the importation of African slaves to North America and
the Caribbean ceased. Sometimes slaves
were hamstrung to stop them escaping. If
they had escaped before, they could have a leg amputated to stop them doing so
again. Once their working lives were
over, they were put-down. Where was the right to life then, one wonders. Black
slaves in the Caribbean and Americas received very little education, but what
they were allowed was mainly religious.
Preachers tended to concentrate on biblical passages that endorsed
slavery and counselled passive acceptance of it. A favourite passage was
“Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only those who
are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh”.(1 Peter 2:18, New
International Version).</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB">Among missionaries, the
problem of preventing slaves from enjoying themselves on the Sabbath appears to
have been far more important than the ethical question of slavery itself</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">.</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: blue;"> </span><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size: 9.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Slave owning Churchmen were not
particularly notable as good masters.
Indeed some of the worst masters were clergymen. In the court of St Ann’s in Jamaica in 1829
the Rev. G. W. Bridges was charged with maltreating a female slave. For a trivial mistake he had stripped her,
tied</span> her by the hands to the ceiling so that her toes hardly touched the
ground, then flogged her with a bamboo rod until she was a “mass of lacerated
flesh and gore” from her shoulders to her calves. The facts were established, but as usual in such cases he was acquitted. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Important questions for the Church were the
extent of slave owners’ rights to flog or burn their human property, to split
up their families, and to demand sexual gratification from them. This last must have been a particular
problem, since owners could point to several biblical passages which take it
for granted that a slave girl is available for her master’s sexual
desires. This was clearly difficult to
square with the knowledge that sex was sinful.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Slavery was not confined to selected races
or to members of other religions: Christians routinely condemned their fellow
believers to slavery. John Knox for
example spent eighteen months as a galley-slave under French Catholics. In the late eighteenth century Popes still
held slaves, as did Anglican clergymen.
It was still beyond question that slavery was ordained by God, and
therefore unimpeachable. In the second
part of <i>The Age of Reason</i> published
in the 1790’s Thomas Paine noted that, in the Book of Numbers, Moses had given
instructions as to how to treat Midianite captives. Essentially, everyone was to be executed
except virgins, whom the victors were allowed to keep alive for themselves. God then gave instructions as to how the
booty, including 32,000 virgins, should be divided up between the victors. Paine summarised the relevant passage: “Here
is an order to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers, and debauch the
daughters”. In response to this, Bishop
Watson of Llandaff pointed out that the virgins had not been spared for any
immoral purpose, as Paine had wickedly suggested. Rather, he said, they were spared so that
they could be taken into slavery.
Obviously, there could be no ethical objection to this, since slavery
was divinely sanctioned. The bishop’s
rebuttal was perfectly acceptable to mainstream eighteenth century Christians, who found sex
objectionable but slavery not at all objectionable. According to the Churches, slavery was not
merely permitted, it was obligatory.
Slavery was a God-given institution.
To oppose what God had sanctioned was positively sinful. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In America opposition to slavery was first
voiced by freethinkers such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine. Initially a Quaker, later a Deist, Paine was
widely condemned as an unbeliever. He
wrote an influential article against slavery in 1775, and when he drafted the
American Declaration of Independence the following year, he included a clause
against slavery that was later struck out.
Under Quaker influence, slavery was made illegal in the state of
Pennsylvania in 1780. Other campaigners included the rationalist James Russell
Lowell, the sceptical ex-preacher Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the freethinker
Wendell Phillips. While Thomas Paine
opposed slavery in America, his fellow freethinkers opposed it in his native
country. Granville Sharp, a humanitarian
lawyer, sought to bring cases before the courts, arguing that throwing slaves
overboard to drown was murder. (The
prevailing Christian view was that a ship’s captain was free to jettison them,
just like any other property, for example to save the ship in a storm). Within a few years, by 1787, a campaign to
abolish the Atlantic slave trade was started by a group of Quakers. It was supported by non-believers. As it grew it was joined by various
nonconformists groups and a few evangelical Christians, but it was consistently
opposed by all traditional Churches and mainstream Christian sects. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">William Wilberforce is usually accredited
with abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire, though he came many
years after the first abolitionist campaigners.
He too was an unbeliever when he espoused abolition. Later as an Evangelical he was able to sit in
Parliament (which unbelievers were not).
There he stood out among his fellow Christians as an exception. He noted that those who opposed slavery were
non-conformists and godless reformers, and that Church people were indifferent
to the cause of abolition, or else actively obstructed it. His grass-root support came from Quakers, Unitarians,
Utilitarians, and assorted Freethinkers and religious sceptics. Like the freethinkers who had started the
movement, Wilberforce was condemned by the mainstream Churches as presuming to
know better than the bible. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Church had enjoyed 1500 years during
which it had had the power to ban slavery, but had failed to do so, or even to
have expressed any desire to do so. Now
that change was in the air, the mainstream churches opposed reform with all
their power. They vilified reformers and
attacked them for daring to question the plain word of God. Anglican Clergymen still owned slaves and
continued to oppose abolition well into the nineteenth century. One of their number was the most effective
supporter of slavery during the 1820’s abolitionist campaign in Jamaica. All mainstream Churches agreed with the
traditional view that slavery was ordained by God. To practice slavery was therefore
meritorious, and to try to stop the practice was sinful. With the exception of Quakers, all
denominations agreed. In 1843 some 1,200
Methodist ministers owned slaves in the USA.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Under popular pressure generated by secular
thinkers, all of the mainstream Churches except the Baptists performed a <i>volte face</i> during the nineteenth
century. When enough of their members
had moved over to the abolitionist cause, the Churches followed. Priests, bishops and popes felt obliged to
cease owning slaves. Slavery was
criticised for the first time by a pope (Gregory XVI) in 1839, but it was not
until the Berlin Conference of 1884 that Catholic countries fell into line with
Protestant ones on the question of slavery, agreeing that it should be
suppressed. The official U turn came in
1888 when Pope Leo XIII declared in <i>In
plurimis</i> that the Church was now opposed to it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In the USA the pattern was similar: slavery
was advocated by nineteenth century Churchmen, though secular forces opposed
it. It was a commonplace that “Slavery
is of God”. Christian ministers wrote
almost half of all defences of slavery published in America. Such defences were routinely produced by the
Churches. Along with these defences,
Christian Churches circulated biblical texts on the subject of “Negro
inferiority”, and the need for total unquestioning obedience. A civil war was fought before the Christian
South was forced to abandon slavery in 1863.
Yet the Southern Presbyterian Church could still resolve in 1864 that it
was their peculiar mission to conserve the institution of slavery, and to make
it a blessing to both master and slave.
To hold that slavery was inherently evil was “one of the most pernicious
heresies of modern times”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Black slaves were not permitted to learn to
read or write, since education was seen as a threat to God’s natural
order. An American slave who adopted the
name Frederick Douglas was exceptional in that he learned to read and write in
secret. After he was granted his freedom
he wrote:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 14.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Were I to be
again reduced to chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard
being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall
me…[I] hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-stripping, cradle plundering,
partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 14.2pt;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The Christianity he had in mind was not
particularly American. Nor is it yet
dead. There are still Christians prepared
to uphold the traditional Christian line.
In 1996 Charles Davidson, a devout Christian Senator from Alabama, said
that slavery had been good for blacks, and pointed out that the practice had
biblical approval, citing the traditional proof-texts such as Leviticus 25:44
and 1 Timothy 6:1. As he well knew, he
still held the traditional Christian line, while almost all other Christians
had abandoned it and even largely forgotten about it.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">The story now propagated by some Churches –
that they were responsible for abolition – is simply false. The first country to abolish slavery was
France, under an anti-clerical revolutionary government in the 1790’s. Abolition came in Britain in the early
nineteenth century, in the teeth of fierce opposition from the Anglican Church,
and it was achieved through the efforts of an alliance of unbelievers,
freethinkers, Quakers and fringe Christians who galvanised public opinion. In the USA it came in the second half of the
century, again in the face of intense opposition from the Churches. The abolitionists won largely because slavery
was no longer financially viable. Strongly Catholic Brazil was the last Christian country to abolish slavery in 1888.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">The only significant Christian sect that
has any reason to be proud about its record is the Quakers. All other
mainstream Churches have a record which is so much of an embarrassment that an
entirely fictitious version has had to be invented. This is the familiar
version that the Churches started teaching in the twentieth century, with
orthodox Christians playing the part of the good guys. It proved so much more
edifying than the truth that schools are still teaching it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">More, with references, at <a href="http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gaa_slavery.htm">http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gaa_slavery.htm</a></span></div>
</div>
Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-2217826588127920662014-04-16T06:39:00.001-07:002014-04-17T03:58:11.188-07:00Mealy Mouthed Christians<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Have you noticed a change in the
arguments used by Christians when they want to impose their views on
others? Three generations ago the arguments
were very clear, and explicitly religious. They went like this:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<ul>
<li><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">You must not drink alcohol
because it is a sin and will lead you to hell.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">You must not gamble because
it is a blasphemy against God and he will damn you for all eternity.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">You must not fornicate
because the Bible tells us that fornication is a serious crime against God.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;"></span><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">You must not masturbate
because it will cause all sorts of illness that reflect the mortal sin in your
soul.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">You must not allow
abortions because they are prohibited in the Bible, and have been forbidden by
the Church since biblical times.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Symbol; text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><span dir="LTR" style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;"></span><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">If you allow equality for
women you will flout the Bible and Saint Paul, flying in the face of God, and doing Satan's work. The women will suffer from
the vapours, hysteria, epilepsy and other serious medical consequences.</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">We must execute homosexuals
because God considers homosexuality an “abomination”</span></li>
<li><span style="text-align: left; text-indent: -0.25in;">We cannot allow suicide, euthanasia
or heart transplants, because that would be “playing God” – usurping the divine
monopoly and upsetting God’s plans for bodily resurrection on the Day of
Judgement.</span></li>
</ul>
<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Since the Second World War Christian
arguments have changed remarkably, at least among the mainstream Churches. Now only fringe
groups hold to the traditional line, citing the nastier parts of the Old
Testament and threatening Satan's hell-fire to anyone who ignores them. Mainstream
Churches have found new ways to try to impose their ideas on others. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The first one is the "slippery
slope" argument. Drinking alcohol is not so bad itself, but if you drink you might well
become dependent on drink and then become an alcoholic and ruin your life. You should not gamble
for the same reason. It will lead you into a life of misery and destroy your family. If you tolerate
same sex marriage then soon people will be demanding the right to marry animals
(I’m not making this up - this is a real argument). If you permit euthanasia even in the strictest conditions
it will be the thin end of the wedge. In no time rapacious individuals will be encouraging
their elderly relative to do away with themselves. Churches like this mode argument
for perhaps three reasons. First it can be applied to almost anything they dislike.
Second, it does not need any supporting evidence. Third it allows the Churches
to portray themselves as loving and caring, with other people’s interests at
heart.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The next mode of argument is a
development of an old argument that they once used for masturbation and women's rights –
imaginary medical consequences. If you use contraception you will spread
various diseases (the opposite of the truth). If you have an abortion, you
stand a high risk of dying or at the very least becoming infertile (untrue). If
you use fetal stem cells, you might catch AIDS (untrue). A generation ago medical
arguments were used liberally by Christians opposed to organ transplants, but those
arguments have diminished now to almost nothing.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The interesting thing about both
of these modes of argument is that there is no religious element to them at
all. As the Churches know, religious arguments are toxic. They convince no one,
and offend many. In most western countries we have not heard the mainstream
Churches articulate a religious argument to justify their desire to prohibit people
doing things for several years now. Religious groups peddling religious nonsense have been superseded by "faith groups" peddling irrational nonsense.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I suppose it’s a victory of
sorts.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-72258359087599449432014-04-15T00:15:00.000-07:002014-04-15T00:16:04.974-07:00Militant, Fundamentalist, Extremist, Aggressive, Fanatical, Rabid Atheists<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
We have
been hearing a lot recently about militant atheists. They are described
variously as militant, extremist, fundamentalist, aggressive, fanatical or even
rabid. Sometimes they are characterized as secularists rather than atheists, but
with the same set of vivid adjectives. I assume these terms are being used to
describe the same bunch of rationalists, and I am fascinated by the concept of
an extremist, aggressive, fundamentalist, fanatical, rabid militant atheist. I
started to think about what one must look like. My first guess was that it
would be a mirror image of an extremist aggressive religious zealot. Now we all
know what aggressive religious zealots look like because there are countless
thousands of them, and they are always in the news. Some kill innocent people,
often children, in the course of exorcising imaginary evil spirits. Some of
them murder medical professionals for performing operations that they do not
agree with, and crowds of like-minded believers cheer and applaud such
murderers. Some opt to sit and watch their children die of easily treatable
medical conditions, believing that God will save them if they pray hard enough.
Some work to bring about a third world war, imagining that it will fulfil
scripture and herald the end of the world, the “End Times” that they so desire.
Some are assassins and suicide bombers. So where are the extremist, aggressive,
fundamentalist, fanatical, rabid atheist counterparts that we also hear so much
about – let’s just call them extremist aggressive atheists to save space. I
worked hard but could not find a single one – no secularist does anything
remotely like any of this, driven by his or her secular philosophy. If there
were one, I think we could all agree that he or she was insane and not
representative of any larger community. The nearest I could find were atheists
who support voluntary euthanasia and a woman’s right abortion – but no secularist
seems to be campaigning for compulsory euthanasia or compulsory abortion, or
intimidating people with different opinions, or murdering people, or killing
their own children in pursuance of their secular beliefs – so not really
convincing as a mirror image of religious zealotry.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">I tried a
different tack. These wicked atheists oppose traditional Christian values, so
let’s look at traditional Christian values and see why atheists opposed them
and what they have to offer instead. Here are just a few of many examples. For
the entire period of over 1,500 years while Christian values were the sole
arbiters of morality, slavery was permitted, endorsed, and enjoined by
reference to scripture. Clergymen of all ranks in all major denominations owned
slaves. The movement against slavery was pioneered by secularists and supported
by fringe groups such as Quakers and Unitarians. As far as I know, all
secularists since Thomas Paine have opposed slavery. Public pressure caused
Christians in Parliament to follow them. When slavery was abolished in the UK,
Churches and individual churchmen had to be paid compensation for the loss of
their slaves. The picture is the same on capital punishment. Christians
supported capital punishment well into the twentieth century, again on the
grounds that it was permitted, endorsed, and enjoined by scripture. The
practice of judicial killings was pared down by secular values from the Renaissance
onward as Christians were prevented from using the law to execute proto-scientists,
vegetarians, midwives, people who damaged Church property, blasphemers,
apostates, critics of clerical abuses, homosexuals, atheists and other Christians
who did not agree with the locally approved Christian line of the day. By a
very large factor, more Christians have been persecuted and killed by other
Christians, than by any other group. Secularists were instrumental in
progressively limiting the range of capital crimes in the face of intense
Christian hostility. Similarly for branding, mutilation and corporal
punishment. As far as I could find there is no group of secularists supporting
capital punishment, branding, mutilation or corporal punishment for any crime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Again, under
centuries of Christian hegemony, European legal systems adopted barbarous
practices such as trial by ordeal. Even in Church trials that did not rely on
supernatural forces there was a presumption of guilt, not of innocence. Accused
persons were not given details of charges against them nor of the evidence
against them, were not allowed to call defence witnesses, were not permitted to
cross examine prosecution witnesses, or even to see them, and were not
permitted legal representation as of right. Under Church law, though not the
secular common law, accused persons could be tortured to obtain confessions. Judges,
jury and prosecution could be the self same clerics. Trickery and threats were
standard, officially recommended, techniques. Again I could not find any
secularists advocating anything like the mirror image of any of this. No
secularist advocates burning all Christians alive. As far as I can tell all
secularists support the idea of fair trials for all, as they have since the age
of Voltaire. The story of freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of
belief, freedom of the press, is much the same. Secularists pioneered the idea
of using prison to reform people rather than as a form of punishment and
revenge. Christians have burned countless thousands of books. As far as I can
tell no secularist advocates book burning. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Traditional
Christianity featured various kinds of discrimination. Churches discriminated
against women (and still do). They discriminated on grounds of sexual
orientation (and still do). Churches discriminated against certain races until
the mid twentieth century, some of them even later. Churches discriminated in
favour of those of noble birth, and against those of humble birth. They
discriminated in favour of clerics and against laymen. They discriminated
against children born out of wedlock (some still do). They were consistently
anti-Semitic for almost two thousand years. They discriminated against the
deaf, the injured and the handicapped. Some Churches still do. Are there any
secularists advocating discrimination like this? If there are, they’re keeping
a very low profile. Apart from reasonable and well-accepted grounds for assigning
legal rights and duties (such as age and capacity) I have not been able to find
any secularists advocating any form of discrimination comparable to that
practised by Christians. They all seem to share the view that the law should be
the same for all. There are other examples – warmongering, prison reform, human
rights and dozens of others - but this is enough to make the point. There
simply are no secularists advocating slavery for Christians. No secularists
advocating the death penalty – or any penalty – for Christians. There are no
secularists advocating the burning of all bibles, or indeed any bibles, or any
books at all. There are no secularists advocating discrimination in favour of
themselves, or against religious groups. They all seem to want a completely
neutral system where all are treated equally. There are no secularists who want
to prohibit the practice of religion – as long as it is subject to the normal
laws on murder, child abuse, fraud, animal cruelty, perverting the course of
justice, and so on. Sure, some secularists object to preferential treatment for
religious groups, but that opinion can hardly be classified as extremist,
aggressive, fanatical or rabid. It’s an obvious corollary of equal treatment
for all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Having
failed again, I tried a third tack. Let’s be as generous as possible. Let’s
accept that the first group, large as it is, is not representative of most
ordinary militant aggressive Christians. We cannot deny that the second group
represented the overwhelming position of Christians for many centuries, but
that was in the past. Most Christians now generally share secular ideas. So for
our third attempt let’s look not at the extreme wing of modern Christianity,
but at the part of the mainstream nearest that extreme. Who occupies this part
of the belief spectrum – still within the mainstream remember? One group of
candidates might be the Christians telling people that condoms do not protect
from AIDS, but actually cause AIDS – so causing thousands, perhaps millions, of
unnecessary deaths. Another might be those who indoctrinate children and tell
them lies, for example that the bible is literally true and that the world no
more than six thousand years old. Another is the large number of Christian
leaders practicing faith healing through prayer in preference to genuine
medical intervention for treatable conditions. Another might be Christian
missionaries systematically destroying local cultures around the world. Another
might be the fundamentalists funding campaigns to introduce the death penalty
for homosexuality in a number of African countries, or church leaders in the UK
“fanning the flames of homophobia” as one government minister recently put it. Are
there secularists who are the mirror image of these believers? I could not find
any secularists telling deliberate lies about condoms, science, faith healing,
homosexuality or anything else, or trying to get minorities executed, or
destroying local communities. As far as I can tell they all value the truth,
whatever it might be. They all favour open mindedness, factual evidence and
rational deduction. So once again, even with this liberal definition, I could
find no extremist aggressive atheists, not a single one. This method of looking
for mirror images of unlovable religious groups does not seem to work – there
simply are no atheists at the extreme non-belief end of the spectrum to provide
a mirror image to believers at the other end.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">One more
go. Let’s try a different tack. We know the names of specific philosophers,
scientists and writers who have frequently been named as extremist aggressive
atheists – people like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennet, and Stephen
Pinker. What do they and people like them believe. Fortunately, they do seem to
share many opinions, so we do seem to have a chance here. They all reject
supernatural beings and supernatural explanations. They all value truth and
learning. They all advocate identical rights and duties for all. They all agree
on basic freedoms and dislike censorship. They oppose cruelty of all kinds. You
might think that they would not want religious topics to be taught in schools –
but none of them say they want that. They all want aspects of religion to be
taught, for example comparative religion, the history of religion, the
sociology of religion, and traditional philosophical arguments for and against
different religions. What they object to is religion dressed up as science and opinion
presented as fact. They all criticise indoctrination of all kinds along with
deliberate fraud, cruelty and hypocrisy. Again, they all recognize that some
good things have come out of religious endeavours – they appreciate great
religious art, great religious architecture, great religious poetry, and so on.
They recognize the numinous. Most, perhaps all, love the beauty of the language
of the Authorized Version of the bible. They know a lot more about Christian
history and theology than most Christians. They turn out to enjoy Christmas and
have no objection to calling it <i>Christmas</i>
rather than the absurd modern term <i>Winter
Festival</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-GB">So this is
it. Now I know who these wicked people are. They are people just like me. It
turns out that I am one of these extremist aggressive atheists. I don’t believe
in fairies, demons, pixies, angels or gods – and I even have doubts about Santa
Claus. I am one of those wicked fanatics determined to destroy our great
Christian heritage by siding with truth and reason, promoting equality,
supporting a wide range of characteristically secular freedoms, and advocating
equality before the law with no exemptions or preferential treatment for any
religion or any other group. I love the language of the Authorized Version. I
am a student of Church architecture. I have an interest in Church history. I
listen to <i>Bells on Sunday</i> every week.
My favourite poem is the <i>Rime of The
Ancient Mariner</i>, a distinctly Christian poem. One particular Christmas
Carol brings tears to my eyes every year. Yet, I’ve been an extremist,
aggressive, militant, fundamentalist, fanatical, rabid atheist for years and
never realized it. Wow. Come to think about it, there must be hundreds of
millions of people like me. How about you? You could be one too. With this
definition of an extremist, aggressive, militant, fundamentalist, fanatical,
rabid atheist, we might already be in the majority in Western Europe. We
certainly are in Northern Europe. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB">Using the
normal sense of the words these atheists are not really <i>extremist</i>, <i>aggressive</i>, <i>militant</i>, <i>fanatical</i>, or <i>rabid</i>. At
most you could describe them as <i>critical</i>.
In fact that is what seems to provoke all these hostile terms – the fact that
there are prepared to voice their criticism. One might almost be tempted to
question the motives of anyone talking about extremist, aggressive, militant,
fanatical, or rabid atheists – it’s just a way of reacting to criticism without
having to face it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-2630911841617804392014-04-14T08:19:00.000-07:002014-04-14T08:19:17.007-07:00Who Counts as a Christian?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
Who counts as a Christian? You might think this is a pointless question, and you think so for several reasons. You might think the answer is obvious. You might think it does not matter.<br />
<br />
The answer is not obvious and it does matter. Why does it matter? Well for one thing the number of Christians and other religious groups in the population is an important consideration in all sorts of public policy. In Britain, the state subsidises and promotes Christianity because this is a “Christian Country”. It supports an Established Church, allowing bishops to sit in parliament. It exempts churches from a range of taxes and from laws that apply to secular organisations. It massively subsidises religious schools – what we now euphemistically call Faith Schools. Even ordinary schools are required by law to carry out daily acts of “broadly Christian worship”. We all pay for thousands of chaplains in the armed forces, hospitals, prisons, police forces, and so on. And it is not only the state. The BBC acts as an unpaid propaganda machine for religion in general and Christianity in particular. The BBC’s religious programming departments pumps out a diet of programmes uniformly sympathetic to a particular strand of ecumenical moderate belief. Even national newspapers run columns angled at Christian believers. All this social engineering is done on the grounds that a large portion of the population is Christian.<br />
<br />
So it really does matter who counts as a Christian. If the proportion of believers in the population is to determine matters like parliamentary representation, tax exemptions, planning and other legal privileges, financial subsidies, special educational rights and so on, then we need to know how many Christians there are, and if they are in an overwhelming majority as they certainly were in the 1950s.<br />
<br />
There are several ways of determining who is a Christian. All of them are questionable, but let’s just look at a few of them. The method Churches themselves traditionally use are statistics based on baptisms. This method gives quite a high proportion (70% but falling). It is high for the very obvious reason that it includes apostates and indeed most of the country’s atheists, agnostics, rationalists. Most were baptized, as infants, without their consent. Even if baptisms drop off dramatically, as they are doing, it will take two or three generations for the statistics to catch up – by which time even more generations of infants will have been counted as members of the fold.<br />
<br />
Incensed by this, a number of non-believers have tried to get themselves removed from the numbers cited by individual churches. Their stories make interesting reading – you can find lots of them on the internet. A few years ago most Churches were stating that there is no mechanism to reverse a baptism. A number of atheist websites offered debaptisim certificates as a joke, but realised that there was a serious demand after tens of thousands expressed an interest. In countries that impose an opt-out church tax, like Germany, hundreds of thousands started opting out it. From 1983 to 2009 the Catholic Church allowed people to “defect” through a formal act called an <i>actus formalis defectionis ab Ecclesia catholica</i>, but provision for this was removed from the Code of Cannon Law in 2009. Since then baptised Roman Catholics have started going out of their way to get themselves excommunicated in order to be formally removed from membership. In France 71 year-old Rene Lebouvier won a legal case in 2012 to get his name removed from the baptismal registry. Anglican Churches now have formal application forms for people to be “unbaptized”. Other churches still have no mechanism at all for officially leaving them.<br />
<br />
In any case it is clear that 70% is a massive overestimate based on the faulty assumption that anyone baptised into a Church will remain a believer, and that it is so unreliable that it is worthless. Suppose we counted only those Christians who had been baptized or confirmed as adults. What would that number of Christians be? 1%, 2% perhaps 3% of the population. Now of course this is not an accurate figure, no one would claim that it was. But it is no more misleading than the one the Churches use. It is just biased in the opposite direction.<br />
<br />
Another way to assess the number of Christians is the one used on Census forms. Here people self-identify as Christians. In the 2001 Census 72% of the population identified themselves as Christian. In 2011 this had dropped to 54%. This figure is the one favoured by the Government. You might have thought that it would represent an accurate figure – why would anyone identify themselves as Christians if they are not? Well there are a number of reasons, most significantly among them cultural and social. In 2012 the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (UK) sponsored independent professional market researchers, Ipsos MORI, to find out a little bit more about the people who identified themselves as Christians in the 2012 census. The results were astonishing. Only about a third of 'Census-Christians' cited religious beliefs as the reason they had ticked the Christian box on the 2011 Census form – so arguably the a real number of self identified Christian believers is really a third of 54%, something like 18%. And this is all Christians – Anglicans represent less than half of this. So we have an Established Church to favour less than 10% of the population and heavily distorted laws to favour them along with a further 10%.<br />
<br />
The results of the survey are available for anyone to view on line. They make fascinating reading. 6% of 'Census-Christians' are out-and-out atheists. An astonishing 32% are not really Christians at all but pantheists or Deists. 50% do not regard themselves as religious people. More than half either regard Jesus as just a man rather than “the Son of God, the Saviour of mankind” or do not believe that he existed at all. Few 'Census-Christians' go to church very often, and most go for non-religious reasons such as “tradition” or social reasons. One can only speculate about how many 'Census-Christians' would agree with the central Christian dogmas of the Incarnation and the Trinity. The question was not included in the survey, but based on the rest of the survey the number could easily be less than 20%.<br />
<br />
We could also define a Christian as someone who looks primarily to their religious teachings and beliefs on questions of right or wrong. Well we know the answer to that one too. It is exactly 10% of 'Census-Christians', so 5.4% of the population at large.<br />
<br />
Of course there are other ways of finding out how many Christians there are. Another survey could test them on the basic knowledge of the teachings of the sect they say they belong to, or on the central doctrines of their church – the ones that Church leaders affirm are necessary for salvation. Intuition suggests that we might be hard pushed to get above 10% of the population on this basis. Intuition also suggests that Church and State will find reasons not to carry out such surveys, or even to agree on working definitions of the word “Christian”.<br />
<br />
So there we are. We have no clear definition of what a Christian is. Those with an incentive to do are left to massively inflate the number of Christians without challenge. And the rest of us pay heavily for it in under-representation in parliament, millions perhaps billions of pounds in extra taxes, and second rate state schools. It’s time perhaps to clean up some definitions, do some proper statistics, re-evaluate government policy, stop discrimination and join the twenty-first century.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-33336428237497280502014-04-13T10:42:00.001-07:002014-04-13T10:51:30.622-07:00Where did Nazis get their Nasty Ideas?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If you believe Catholic Church leaders, you might easily imagine that the Nazis were a confederation of atheists and neo-pagans who forced their views on an unwilling populace. Catholic and Protestants alike fought bravely against their wicked ideas, often suffering martyrdom for their resistance.</span></div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The truth of course is very different. The Nazis were 95% Christian from top to bottom (99% if you include Deists) roughly one-third Catholic and two-thirds Protestant. The one influential exception was Himmler, who promoted neo-pagan ideas that were extremely unpopular with his Christian colleagues, and whom Christian apologists love to portray as typical of the Nazi leadership. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of Nazis were Christian. The political leadership, the generals, the SS, the Gestapo, the soldiers and sailors, the guards in the death Camps, the people who organized and carried out mass killings – all were overwhelmingly Christian. And of course 100% of Death Camp chaplains were Christian.</span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The close connection between Christian and Nazi ideas is highlighted by the fact that Christians Churches and the Nazis persecuted exactly the same groups: Jews, Romanies, homosexuals, religious dissenters, and political enemies. The best known, and largest of these groups, were the Jews. Anti-Semitism was</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> an aspect of traditional Christianity that the Nazis embraced with particular enthusiasm.</span></span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Before the war Hitler had boasted to Bishop Berning of Osnabrüch that he would do nothing that the Church had not been doing for fifteen hundred years.</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> And he kept his word. </span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Below is a list of traditional Christians ideas and practices that Hitler's Nazis copied from the Church:</span></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Public humiliation of Jews</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Yellow patches, the wearing of which was compulsory as a badge of shame</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Forcing Jews to live in Ghettos - the word and the idea were both invented by the Catholic Church</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Caricaturing Jews as rapacious and as dirty, disease-carrying, treacherous vermin</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Civil disabilities, restricting marriage, property rights and public office</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Anti-Semitic legislation (for example restricting guild memberships and occupations available to Jews). Some of the anti-Semitic Nazi legislation was copied directly from Catholic Church legislation.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The concept of favoured villages and towns being allowed to be Jüdenfrei (Free of Jews)</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Orchestrating pogroms</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Forced exile at the early stages of persecution.</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Burning Jewish Books</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Burning synagogues</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Dispossession of property</span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Killing Jews, often <i>en masse</i></span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Charging the families of executed Jews for the execution costs </span></li>
<li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The blood libel: encouraging the accusation that Jews sacrificed Christian children</span></li>
</ul>
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In fact it is difficult to find any aspect of Nazi anti-Semitism that is not a direct copy of Church anti-Semitism. The Nazis merely industrialized what the Christian Church had been doing. </span></div>
<br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A couple of quotations to ram home the point:</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>"The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc, because it recognized the Jews for what they were .... I recognize the representatives of this race as pestilent for the state and for the Church ..."</i></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Adolf Hitler, 26 April 1933</span></blockquote>
<br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Without centuries of Christian anti-Semitism, Hitler's passionate hatred would never have been so fervently echoed. </i></span></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Robert Runcie (1921-2000), Archbishop of Canterbury (1980-1991)</span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">More detail, with references at </span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gcc_politics.htm">http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gcc_politics.htm</a> and</span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gbf_jews.htm">http://www.badnewsaboutchristianity.com/gbf_jews.htm</a></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
</div>
Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com53tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-72336188547692936452014-04-11T04:51:00.000-07:002014-04-14T08:19:59.106-07:00Bad Ideas You Thought Were Characteristically Muslim<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
We have all noticed similarities between the Christian and Muslim religions. They share common Judaic origins. Both feature male clerics with special titles wearing special clothes and special hats, relaying versions of what God wants, in special halls built with special towers, designed for calling the faithful. They both feature prayers and ceremonials, monopolies on rights of passage, and morality based on ancient books which they imagine to have been written by God.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Secularists can point to many other similarities, but even they are often unaware of historic similarities, believing the two religions to be more different than they are.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
When Christians look at the Moslem world
today, they are often horrified by Islamic practices, which they see as primitive and
backward. They are invariably judging the religion by modern western secular
standards. If they knew a little more about the history of their own faith, they would know that Islam is not so very different
from traditional Christianity. The worst aspects of Islam were all familiar and integral aspects of Christianity too. Here are a few examples.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US">Rape in order to Force Marriage<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">In many Islamic countries it is common
practice for men to rape single women in order to force them to marry their
rapist. Failure to consent to marry will mean that the raped woman is at best
unmarriageable and at worst liable to execution. Having had sex, however
unwillingly, she is guilty of fornication. Such unfair and unreasonable practices
are not peculiar to Islam. They are based on the Jewish scriptures and were
shared for most of its history by the Christian Church. (In Church Law marriage following rape was identified explicitly as one of three types of valid marriage). The practice is rare now in western countries, but was reported in Catholic areas well
within living memory, for example in Italy.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US">Child Marriage<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4JqWT9MEgSi2qKSbCfjPvfP69l950wrKZFz2P-AxwtnpmbvxxlP80hTlk61ZiwZe_SV5-CmivNQ3MzkAIXeCfDgEnSz0eOAZjMxQ0_QuHNPXpAkOkxn7qCrza5fQF5Xrxi53vZr9iFVx/s1600/islamic.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd4JqWT9MEgSi2qKSbCfjPvfP69l950wrKZFz2P-AxwtnpmbvxxlP80hTlk61ZiwZe_SV5-CmivNQ3MzkAIXeCfDgEnSz0eOAZjMxQ0_QuHNPXpAkOkxn7qCrza5fQF5Xrxi53vZr9iFVx/s1600/islamic.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brides and their Grooms</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The prophet Mohammed married Aisha bint Abu
Bakr when he was 51 and she was 7 years old. They engaged in sexual activity,
but not full sexual intercourse until she was 9 years old. For many Muslims
this establishes beyond all doubt that child marriage is warranted by God. The
idea horrifies many modern Christians, but not those familiar with the
traditions of their own faith. Traditional Catholic teaching was that girls
could marry at the age of 12 and boys at the age of 14 - or at puberty if earlier than 12 or 14. They could contract
marriages at the age of seven, unless they were from royal or great noble
houses in with case they could contract marriage at any age. We know from
Church records that in practice, even in Protestant England, children and even
babes-in-arms were routinely married in church. </span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The legal age for marriage remained
at seven in the state of Delaware until the early twentieth century. In many other US states and European countries it was still 12. As in
almost all western jurisdictions the age of consent was repeatedly raised during the
twentieth century – only the Vatican State lagging behind. For Girls, it was eventually
raised to 14 by Law No. VIII of 11 July 2013.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US">Veils, Head Coverings and Harems<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7dQjBXtUuUCJCVvLdh2jj8pgflAQe5wqyvGz3mDyVCEkKROO0-xHZrPGKFaN1koGWtPOAX7ZF4CCOhgx6mDn-d4IBr28ynyjR9z2KP68LAi2nkoYp0IG-zJjRLlf_tDRI2dZIrTaQ0b6/s1600/nun+from+the+back.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjo7dQjBXtUuUCJCVvLdh2jj8pgflAQe5wqyvGz3mDyVCEkKROO0-xHZrPGKFaN1koGWtPOAX7ZF4CCOhgx6mDn-d4IBr28ynyjR9z2KP68LAi2nkoYp0IG-zJjRLlf_tDRI2dZIrTaQ0b6/s1600/nun+from+the+back.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Muslima or Nun/</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The practice of women wearing veils,
covering their hair and living together in total or partial seclusion in a
well-defined section of the house is still common in many Muslim countries. In
the west the restricted areas are often called harems, but they go by many local
names. In Pakistan they are is popularly known as murgh khanas (literally
“hen houses”). The memory of all these practices has faded in the West, though
they were all widespread within Christendom, especially in the Eastern Church.
The Greeks even had their own name for a harem – they called it a gynæceum. We
have a few other small reminders of traditional Christian ideas of female
modesty. A nun’s habit is almost identical to traditional forms of women’s
clothing in some Muslim countries, and high status women still wear their
traditional veils on special occasions, such as funerals and on meeting senior
clerics. It made front page news in April 2014 when Queen Elizabeth II broke
with tradition by not wearing a long black dress and a veil when she met Pope
Francis. Ironically, the Muslim world might well have picked up all of these
practices concerning female modesty, along with purdah, from Byzantine Christians.</span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><b>Iconoclasm</b></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5n0qm9dAB9aLatinzhp0CrhzKE-d2FEjV4sB-tDPRAtDSL023V62A_kBky4OAb5ClBtzs58xfUPt-6uEGyQOglHjcfx6tXmuGQtqBjafl3OV7rvBEMQE68DamGX5Ryw0nEYkK-bOENsMB/s1600/2737920558_78d3de6c0f_z.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5n0qm9dAB9aLatinzhp0CrhzKE-d2FEjV4sB-tDPRAtDSL023V62A_kBky4OAb5ClBtzs58xfUPt-6uEGyQOglHjcfx6tXmuGQtqBjafl3OV7rvBEMQE68DamGX5Ryw0nEYkK-bOENsMB/s1600/2737920558_78d3de6c0f_z.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Catholic icons <br />
defaced by Protestants</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Like the Jews both Christians and Muslims strictly prohibited the making of images of anything in heaven or on earth. Christianity gradually shifted ground on this: allowing successively images of inanimate objects, plants, animals, humans, prophets, supernatural beings, God;s limbs and finally God's face. All Muslims have taken the same path, but some are further along than others. (Images of Mohammed for example are common in Iran). Incidentally, The Christian journey was as rocky as the Muslim one, with separate iconoclastic controversies in the Eastern and Western Churches.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US">Mutilation<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Mutilating criminals is widely considered
in the west to be barbaric, but this view is characteristically secular and
relatively recent. Christian Churches not only tolerated mutilation, but
practised it. Cannon law set penalties for various crimes against the Church: amputations
for stealing church property or striking a cleric, ripping out tongues for
blasphemy, branding on the face for a range of crimes. Like modern Muslims they
pointed out that mutilation was mandated by God – for Muslims in the Qur’an,
for Christians in the Bible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US">Execution for adultery<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Modern Christians are fond of pointing out
that Jesus took no action against a woman taken in adultery, and this is often
contrasted with the Muslim practice of stoning women to death for adultery, a
practice based on God’s eternal laws as specified in the Old Testament. Before the secular age, Christians too
followed the Old Testament and imposed the death sentence for adultery. Indeed,
the laws sometimes cited the Christian scriptures, chapter and verse, in their
statutes, emphasizing their Christian nature.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US">Praying with Arms Out, Palms Open<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIxU4JGeTGUspK6pKPIbbctoOJjcgpfrWAO87aKZsi4rXlvA1YrfFC7uZL2ZU0sDmGyQV1eMnobOCdduaWO5_JtjbF3B7EzZqiThK032mH2heAc6H3A5aQOCh6ZaKLsb7UVQ-szGnsU4yP/s1600/christ-in-gesthemane-01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIxU4JGeTGUspK6pKPIbbctoOJjcgpfrWAO87aKZsi4rXlvA1YrfFC7uZL2ZU0sDmGyQV1eMnobOCdduaWO5_JtjbF3B7EzZqiThK032mH2heAc6H3A5aQOCh6ZaKLsb7UVQ-szGnsU4yP/s1600/christ-in-gesthemane-01.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Orthodox icons show the <br />
original Christian way of praying</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Muslims pray 5 times a day, facing a special direction with their arms held out in a characteristic pose. These features are often thought typically Muslim, but they are all equally Christian. The practice of praying 5 or 7 times a day at set times was once standard practice for all Christians - it was once a strict requirement - and the practice is still observed in religious institutions. The idea of facing a set direction was also common. European Christians faced East to the rising sun, or to Jerusalem, to pray. Muslims originally faced Jerusalem too when they prayed, but changed the direction to Mecca when they lost control over Jerusalem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Christians praying with their hands together is an innovation. It derives from the feudal practice of swearing homage. Modern Christians pray as though they were swearing homage to God. Actually, not all of them do. Some evangelical Christians have recently switched to the traditional pose, identical to the one used by Muslims.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US">Slavery<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ywFdGOB3vHyyiPw3vXFbyFlABIIVAgbhulCbzTKWeGAE0zAppdT_fqHeBYlH_RedZa7Yvee-NxRUYx-NKVr_7K4JVGIZuO1g20O7ySw-tLXjVfdNF9s70YpRUwzioO0kaeJYjFX5Re8s/s1600/BgW8wDqCcAA5ihe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ywFdGOB3vHyyiPw3vXFbyFlABIIVAgbhulCbzTKWeGAE0zAppdT_fqHeBYlH_RedZa7Yvee-NxRUYx-NKVr_7K4JVGIZuO1g20O7ySw-tLXjVfdNF9s70YpRUwzioO0kaeJYjFX5Re8s/s1600/BgW8wDqCcAA5ihe.jpg" /></a></div>
<span lang="EN-US">Muslims have practised slavery for
over fourteen centuries since the time of Mohammed. Christians practised slavery for a rather longer time, starting from the time of Jesus. God’s approval of the
practice of slavery is very clear – it is mentioned many times in the Old
Testament. Archaeologists have found examples of Christian slave collars from early times. It is still possible to read the owners' names - names such as <i>Felix the Archdeacon</i>. In medieval times m</span>onasteries owned slaves and unlike other slave-owners refused ever to emancipate their slaves - arguing that they belonged to God, so he could emancipate them himself if he wanted to. Up until the rise of secular thought during the Enlightenment, no
Christian seems to have criticized the practice, and when the first Christians
followed free-thinkers, like Thomas Paine and Benjamin Franklin, they were roundly
denounced by the Churches as atheists intent on attacking the word of God. Modern Christians, almost all follow secular opinion, and imagine it to represent historical Christianity. For them it is
sobering to think that Christians practised slavery for centuries longer than
Muslims have practised it.</div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US">Forced conversions<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Christians often attribute the success of
Islam to forced conversions. Islam conquered many lands by the sword and then
prohibited the practice of any religion other than the “religions of the book”.
There is a great deal of truth in this, but a critical fact is that
Christianity was spread in exactly the same way. Both religions won territory
by force of arms, made deals with existing rulers, and enforced conformity to
the new religion. Holy pagan artefacts were destroyed and holy pagan temples appropriated
as Mosques or Churches. People had were presented with a straight choice
between conversion and death. Lucky ones were given a third option, exile. We
know from Christian records that Christian forces were prepared to kill tens of
thousands of people a day if they refused to convert – the Saxons are just one
example well known to historians. Again the Moslem practice was modelled on
existing Christian practices.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US">Execution for apostasy<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">It seems absurd and barbaric to try and
execute people for exercising what is now seen as a basic human right, the
right to reject religious beliefs. It is well known that some Muslim countries
enforce belief in Islam, and execute any citizen who dissents – Saudi Arabia is
a notable example. What is less well known is that Christians did the same
thing, when they had the power to do so. When the Church was able to enforce
cannon law it was a capital crime to abandon the Christian faith. From
historical records we know that Christians executed not only atheists, but
Pantheists and Deists, and even Christians who opted for a sect other than the
one currently in favour. We even have records of cases of a trainee monk in England being
executed for adopting Judaism. So death for apostates is not a particularly
Islamic idea. When they could, Christians did exactly the same thing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US">Fatwas<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWEA5zYBLLcZLTNFueEihuXKEQDFDM4T4G0jjWLAgi9_bWbWWqp2VjePNQwNRkbI6kiHLVjOKBJ5OHOnuTFA0aWy1sygu8Po_Fab246Urgu4EKoORB7TviuTe8XAeE-ebg-kyap-kOE0Nu/s1600/446px-El_Greco_050.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWEA5zYBLLcZLTNFueEihuXKEQDFDM4T4G0jjWLAgi9_bWbWWqp2VjePNQwNRkbI6kiHLVjOKBJ5OHOnuTFA0aWy1sygu8Po_Fab246Urgu4EKoORB7TviuTe8XAeE-ebg-kyap-kOE0Nu/s1600/446px-El_Greco_050.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pius V</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">A fatwah is an Islamic religious judgement,
but in the popular Christian mind it is a sentence of death, passed by a
religious leader without any sort of trial. The very idea is contrary to the
secular concept of Justice and the rule of law. For Catholics at least, the
idea of such a fatwah should not be so alien. For many centuries Popes,
speaking on behalf of God, routinely called for the deaths of people they
regarded as their enemies. Perhaps the best known example is Pope St Pius V calling for the death of Queen Elizabeth I of England. His idea was to free her subjects “from the sordid libidinous slavery to women” <i>(</i></span><i>ex turpissima muliebris libidinis servitute). </i>In <i>Regnans in Excelsis</i>, he purported to liberate her subjects from their allegiance to her, and called on them to “send her out of this world”.</div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US">Holy War<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">Jihad is another Arabic term that has a range
of meanings, one of which has become well known in the west. For many Jihad
means holy war, a war sanctioned by God. The idea of a holy war is familiar to
Christians. The Church has a long history of preaching holy war. The best known
examples were the Crusades to the Holy Land, but there were many other
examples. As is many other cases, the Muslim practice seems to have been based
on the Christian one. The very concept of a Holy War became popular in Islam as
a direct reaction the Christian “Holy Wars” to recover Jerusalem for
Christendom. As Saint Bernard said “It is not homicide to kill a Muslim, but
malicide” – killing an evil, not a man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US">God’s representative on earth<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">The idea that a man might be God’s personal
representative on earth now seems implausible, but both Muslims and Christians
believed that a succession of men fulfilled this role. Muslims considered the
Caliph to be “God’s Shadow on Earth”. This is comparable to the claim made by the bishops of Rome. Since the thirteenth century they have claimed to be
“God’s Vicar on Earth”. In both cases religious leaders were claiming to be
God’s deputy on earth.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span lang="EN-US">Ummah <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">One aspect of Islam that scares many
Christians is the intention to convert the whole world. Everyone must adopt the Islamic religion. This global community is known as the Ummah (another
Arabic word with a range of related meanings). The idea is not peculiar to
Islam. Medieval Christians believed that the end of the world could not arrive
until the whole world had accepted God's one true religion and become Christian – a phenomenon that the Franciscans
imagined to be imminent. Christians belonging to some evangelical sects still
believe that it is their duty to convert the whole world in order to allow the End Times to begin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="EN-US"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b>Practising<span lang="EN-US"> Deception<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">God was known to have been opposed to
lying. He said so in one of his ten Commandments. On the other hand it did not
suit His followers to tell the truth in all circumstances. The answer to this
problem was to invent rules that permitted lying, but calling the practice
something else. For Shi’a Muslims it is Taqiyya. For Catholics it is called “equivocation”
or “mental reservation”. Broadly the Catholic method works like this: You find
a form of words that you know will be interpreted in one way, although in your
own mind it has a totally different meaning. To give a (genuine) example, a
Catholic bishop might say that he is not aware of hush money being paid to cover up child abuse, even though
he aware of such payments. He justifies it to himself by saying that he meant he was not aware of such a payment having been made today. Similarly,
a Muslim cleric might say that he does not know of any terrorist activities. He
justifies it by saying that he does not regard bomb making as a terrorist
activity. In both cases, secular opinion is that the person has lied, but for
the religious mind, God has allowed them a way out of telling the truth without lying.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="EN-US">So there it is. Many aspects of modern
Islam and traditional Christianity are remarkably similar. And this is no coincidence – Islam was long regarded as an heretical branch of Christianity.
The two religions have common origins. They </span><span lang="EN-US">have </span>borrowed liberally from each other<span lang="EN-US">. They have fought each
other for adherents. They have deve</span><span lang="EN-US">loped the same dangerous and immoral ideas. We could have added a host of other similarities: </span>interference in politics, indoctrination, censorship, institutional corruption, concealing serious crimes, religious restrictions on many normal activities, etc. In fact, apart from polygamy, it is not at all easy the find areas where Christianity and Islam have consistently held different views.</div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-53980734308688267622011-07-15T11:09:00.000-07:002011-07-15T11:15:44.949-07:00Cloyne report: Church failed to report all abuse cases<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; "><span class="date" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; font-weight: bold; "><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; "><span class="date" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; font-weight: bold; ">13 July 2011</span> <span class="time-text" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; ">Last updated at </span><span class="time" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; ">22:40 GMT</span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; "><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-14136923">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-14136923</a></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; "><h1 class="story-header" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 34px; margin-top: 3px; margin-right: -160px; 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font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; height: 84px !important; visibility: hidden; margin-top: -1px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: auto; margin-left: auto; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; width: 300px; "><div class="bbccom_text bbccom_companion_text" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; font: normal normal bold 10px/23px helvetica, arial, sans-serif !important; letter-spacing: 0px !important; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; text-align: right; float: right; height: auto; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><a href="http://faq.external.bbc.co.uk/questions/bbc_online/adverts_general" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; font: normal normal bold 10px/23px helvetica, arial, sans-serif !important; letter-spacing: 0px !important; text-transform: uppercase; background-color: transparent; background-image: none; "></a></div></div><p class="caption" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 16px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1em; text-rendering: auto; clear: both; position: relative; float: none; display: block; ">Abuse victim: "I feel as if I have been touched by the devil</p></div><div class="story-feature related narrow" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; position: relative; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: -160px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 16px; width: 144px; float: right; display: inline; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; clear: right; "><a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-14136923#story_continues_1" style="color: rgb(31, 79, 130); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; position: absolute; top: -5000px; left: -5000px; ">Continue reading the main story</a><h2 style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 11px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.231em; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); font-weight: bold; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; ">Related Stories</h2><ul class="related-links-list" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 8px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; list-style-type: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; clear: both; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; "><li style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1em; text-rendering: auto; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-14143822" style="color: rgb(31, 79, 130); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Cloyne report: A detailed guide</a></li><li style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1em; text-rendering: auto; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14138250" style="color: rgb(31, 79, 130); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Cloyne abuse victim speaks out</a></li><li style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1em; text-rendering: auto; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-14123730" style="color: rgb(31, 79, 130); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Cloyne report: Who is John Magee?</a></li></ul></div><p class="introduction" id="story_continues_1" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; font-weight: bold; ">A Catholic diocese in County Cork failed to report all complaints of abuse to police, a report has said.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The Commission of Investigation into the Diocese of Cloyne investigated how allegations against 19 priests were dealt with between 1996 and 2009.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">Its <a href="http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/Cloyne_Rpt" style="color: rgb(31, 79, 130); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">report</a>, published on Wednesday, found Bishop John Magee falsely told the Irish government he was reporting all abuse allegations to authorities.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The Catholic Church and Bishop Magee have apologised.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The leader of Ireland's Catholics, Cardinal Sean Brady, said it was another "dark day in the history of the response of church leaders to the cry of children abused by church personnel".</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">"The findings of this report confirm that grave errors of judgement were made and serious failures of leadership occurred," he said.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">"This is deplorable and totally unacceptable."</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">In a statement, Bishop Magee said he apologised to those affected for his "failure to ensure that they were fully supported and responded to in their time of need".</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">In one case described in the report, the diocese's second-in-command, Monsignor Denis O'Callaghan, was said to have withheld the identity of a perpetrator from the authorities and attempted to have an Irish police officer investigate the case.</p><span class="cross-head" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; display: block; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.231em; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; ">'Inadequate'</span><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The police officer was found to have correctly disregarded the request.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">Monsignor O'Callaghan said he was sorry that in responding to allegations of abuse he had sometimes become "emotionally and pastorally drawn to the plight of the accused priest".</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">He said this was "to the detriment of the pastoral response I intended to make to complainants".</p><p style="font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span" >Bishop Magee was one of the 19 priests identified by the commission.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The Cloyne report, which runs to 400 pages, said there were concerns about Bishop Magee's interaction with a 17-year-old boy.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">"The commission regrets that it has not been possible to report the case involving concerns about Bishop Magee without identifying him," the report said.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">"Concerns were expressed about his interaction with a 17-year-old boy."</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">It said the teenager, who had been contemplating joining the priesthood, was concerned that "the behaviour of the bishop towards him, which had not perturbed him at the time, was, on reflection, disquieting".</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">However, the report said it was satisfied that this case had been dealt with appropriately.</p><div class="story-feature wide " style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; position: relative; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: -160px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 16px; width: 304px; float: right; display: inline; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; clear: right; "><a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-14136923#story_continues_2" style="color: rgb(31, 79, 130); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; position: absolute; top: -5000px; left: -5000px; ">Continue reading the main story</a><h2 style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 11px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.231em; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); font-weight: bold; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; "><br /></h2></div><p id="story_continues_2" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The Newry-born Bishop Magee stepped aside in 2009 after an earlier report criticised his handling of abuse allegations.</p><p style="font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">The latest report, which was published by Justice Minister Alan Shatter and Children's Minister Frances Fitzgerald, said the response of the diocese to allegations of child sexual abuse for the period of 1996 to 2008 was "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" >inadequate and inappropriate</span><span class="Apple-style-span" >".</span></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">It said it was a "remarkable fact" that Bishop Magee had taken "little or no active interest" in the management of clerical sexual abuse cases until 2008. This was 12 years after the procedures on how to deal with such matters were implemented by the church.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">It added that Bishop Magee had to "a certain extent, detached himself from the day to day management of child sexual abuse cases".</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">"Bishop Magee was head of the diocese and cannot avoid his responsibility by blaming subordinates whom he wholly failed to supervise," the report said.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">In his statement, Bishop Magee said he now realised he should have taken "a much firmer role" in ensuring the implementation of the church procedures published in 1996.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">"I accept in its entirety the commission's view that the primary responsibility for the failure to fully implement the church procedures in the diocese lay with me," he added.</p><span class="cross-head" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; display: block; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.231em; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; ">Complaints</span><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The commission said it was aware of some 40 people who may have been affected by clerical abuse in the diocese.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">All but two complaints came from people who were adults at the time the complaint was made.</p><p style="font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">The report said between 1995 and 2005 there were 15 complaints against clergy in the diocese which </span><span class="Apple-style-span" >should have been reported</span><span class="Apple-style-span" >.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The most serious lapse was the failure to report two cases in which the alleged victims were minors at the time the complaint was made.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">It also said there was no communication with a neighbouring diocese when a priest who had retired because of complaints went to live there.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">However, there was no case in which the diocese moved priests against whom allegations had been made.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">A number of priests whom allegations were made against were "retired".</p><p style="font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span" >The Irish justice minister said on Wednesday that he intended to introduce a new criminal offence with up to five years in prison for anyone who does not declare information about the abuse of a child.</span></p><p style="font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span" >He said in future, priests would not be excused for withholding information about alleged child abuse even if it was given to them during confession.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The inquiry was set up by the Irish government in January 2009 following a report published the previous month.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">It was conducted by the National Board for Safeguarding Children (NBSC) - a body set up by the Catholic Church to oversee child protection policies.</p><p style="font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); ">It found child protection practices in the diocese were "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" >inadequate and in some respects dangerous</span><span class="Apple-style-span" >".</span></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; "><br /></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; "><br /></p></span><h2 style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 11px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.231em; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); font-weight: bold; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; ">Irish President Mary McAleese on Cloyne report</h2><p style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 13px; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">"Clearly, an immediate priority today must be the abused victims, ensuring that they receive all necessary support and reassurance in the wake of the publication of this distressing and damning report.</p><p style="font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 13px; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); ">"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" >It is a matter of grave concern that the report's findings show that, up to 2008, the Cloyne Diocese failed in large measure to comply with the Catholic Church's own 1996 guidelines on clerical child sex abuse</span><span class="Apple-style-span" >.</span></p><p style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 13px; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">"Had these guidelines been fully honoured and rigorously adhered to (as the public had been led to believe they would), this report would never have been necessary and children need not have been rendered so vulnerable.</p><p style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 13px; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">"The leadership of the Catholic Church needs to urgently reflect on how, by coherent and effective action, it can restore public trust and confidence in its stated objective of putting children first."</p></div>Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-2656270349382028302011-07-15T11:00:00.000-07:002011-07-15T11:05:02.432-07:00Philippine bishops to return donated SUVs<div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 16px; "><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14143031">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-14143031</a></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; "><span class="date" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; font-weight: bold; ">13 July 2011</span> <span class="time-text" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; ">Last updated at </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 16px; "><span class="time" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; ">15:51 GMT</span></span></div></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 32px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 34px; "><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; font-size: 32px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: -1px; line-height: 34px; ">Philippine bishops to return donated SUVs</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; "><div id="page-bookmark-links-head" class="share-help" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; position: relative; width: 240px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 8px; margin-right: -160px; margin-bottom: -2px; margin-left: 0px; z-index: 1; "><h3 style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.846em; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: -1px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; position: absolute; left: -5000px; top: -5000px; ">Share this page</h3></div><div class="caption body-narrow-width" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; position: relative; clear: both; float: right; display: inline; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: -160px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 16px; "><img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54058000/jpg/_54058376_54055370.jpg" width="304" height="171" alt="Protesters outside the senate hearing in Manila" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; -webkit-user-select: none; position: relative; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; " /><span style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; display: block; width: 304px; ">Protesters dressed as bishops in SUVs stood outside the Senate during the hearing</span></div></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><b><br /></b></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; "><p class="introduction" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; font-weight: bold; ">Roman Catholic bishops in the Philippines are to return sport utility vehicles (SUVs) received as gifts from government funds, an inquiry has heard.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">Senators are investigating claims that illegal gifts bought with state lottery money were given to the bishops by the last government to win their support.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The bishops acknowledge accepting the cars but say they did so only to help poor people in remote communities.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">More than 80% of Filipinos are Catholic and the clergy are highly influential.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">At the Senate inquiry in Manila on Wednesday, bishops turned over four SUVs and said others were in the process of being returned.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The bishops apologised for any pain caused to their followers or the Church, but insisted the donations were only to help them reach isolated communities.</p><span class="cross-head" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; display: block; font-weight: bold; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.231em; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; ">'Sincere sadness'</span><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">"Even if it is not unlawful and even if it is not unconstitutional, we believe that it is important for us to clear everything in the air and return the vehicles," Archbishop Orlando Quevedo of the southern Cotabato diocese told the inquiry.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">He expressed "sincere sadness" on behalf of the Church that many Catholics were "confused, disturbed and even scandalised".</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The head of the Philippine state lottery, Margie Juico, earlier told the hearing that seven bishops received gifts during former President Gloria Arroyo's term in office.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">Critics have accused Mrs Arroyo of using donations to try to secure the bishops' support. She stepped down last year after nine years in power.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">Mrs Juico said an audit had showed that at least 6.9m pesos ($158,600; £98,300) in charity funds were used to buy vehicles at the request of several bishops.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos, of southern Butuan city, admitted that he wrote to Mrs Arroyo to ask for a sport utility vehicle costing 1.7m pesos for his 66th birthday but said it was to help him reach remote areas on Mindanao Island.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">He acknowledged that the move "was a lapse in judgment on my part" that has "cast a shadow of uncertainty on my dignity as a bishop and my moral ascendancy as a leader of the Catholic Church."</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">During the hearing, dozens of protesters held placards outside the Senate, some wearing bishops' frocks and cardboard replicas of SUVs around their waists.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">"I need my SUV to reach moral high ground," one placard read.</p></span></div></div>Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-23929148045655483262011-05-29T11:08:00.000-07:002011-05-29T11:12:01.491-07:00Spain investigates tragedy of 'stolen' newborn babieshttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12886441<br /><br /><br /><div class="story-body"> <span class="story-date"> <span class="date">31 March 2011</span> <span class="time-text">Last updated at </span><span class="time">00:48 GMT</span> </span> <div id="page-bookmark-links-head" class="share-help"><br /></div> <h1 class="story-header">Spain investigates tragedy of 'stolen' newborn babies</h1> <span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Sarah Rainsford</span> <span class="byline-title">BBC News, Madrid</span> </span> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51898000/jpg/_51898515_antonio4.jpg" alt="Antonio Barroso at the office of Anadir, an association set-up to support suspected victims of alleged baby trade" height="405" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Antonio Barroso has been told he was bought at birth</span> </div> <div class="story-feature related narrow"> <br /></div> <p class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">Antonio Barroso always suspected that something in his family wasn't quite right. He was 38 when the secret was finally revealed: his parents had bought him as a baby.</p> <p>"I discovered my whole life was a lie," Antonio said. </p> <p>The truth came out during the deathbed confession of a family friend. Like Antonio's parents, he and his wife had been unable to conceive. Both couples had bought their babies from a nun, for "more than the price of a flat".</p> <p>Antonio's mother has since confirmed the story and DNA tests have proved he has no genetic link to the couple who raised him. His birth certificate had been falsified.</p> <span class="cross-head">'Illicit trade'</span> <p>"I want to know the truth," Antonio said, flicking through snapshots of his childhood, "To find out who I am and where I come from. I want to know what happened and who was responsible. And if people need to be punished, they should be punished".</p> <p>Antonio soon discovered other cases similar to his own, and signs of an illicit trade in newborn babies.</p> <p>At the support group he set up in Vilanova i la Geltru, his home town on the Catalan coast, the phone rarely stops ringing. The desk is piled high with letters from Spaniards who fear they could be victims of a criminal network, thought to have operated until the 1990s.</p> <div class="story-feature narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12886441#story_continues_2">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2 class="quote">“<span>Start Quote</span></h2> <blockquote><p class="first-child">We were starting to make a family and they destroyed that completely. I have to meet my daughter. I want to tell her, girl, I'm your Dad”</p></blockquote> <span class="endquote">End Quote</span> <span class="quote-credit">Salvador Martin</span> <span class="quote-credit-title">Father, who believes his daughter was stolen from him</span> <ul class="links-list"><li> <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12885238" class="quote-link">In pictures: Spanish 'baby trade'</a></li></ul> </div> <p id="story_continues_2">For some, that suspicion is strengthened by Spain's history. After the civil war, children were removed from Republican prisoners and given to supporters of General Franco's dictatorship. Historians estimate up to 30,000 children were affected by the 'ideological cleansing'.</p> <span class="cross-head">'Baby-theft'</span> <p>"In the 1950s, that practice was converted into mafia business," said Enrique Vila, a lawyer helping Antonio's support group, Anadir. "The goal became money. They took children from anyone, to sell."</p> <p>The lawyer believes some babies were abandoned by unmarried Catholic girls or prostitutes and others were stolen after doctors told mothers that their newborns had died.</p> <p>Ana Josefa Escabia died several hours after giving birth in Terrassa in 1975. Her husband clearly remembers seeing his daughter alive. </p> <p>"I saw her born," Salvador Martin said, his eyes welling with tears, 36 years later. "She was gorgeous, just like her sister."</p> <p>But doctors later told Salvador his baby had been stillborn. A sealed coffin was delivered to the cemetery.</p> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51879000/jpg/_51879028_anayounger.jpg" alt="Salvador Martin and wife Ana Josefa, in 1970s, just before she became pregnant " height="171" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Ana Josefa Escabia and her husband were told that their baby was stillborn</span> </div> <p>Last December, tormented by doubts, Salvador decided to open the family vault. DNA tests revealed the baby inside was a boy, and no relation. </p> <p>Salvador is now desperate to know what happened to his daughter. No other baby was buried in Terrassa on that day. He is convinced his child was stolen.</p> <span class="cross-head">DNA database</span> <p>"It's not like a bag of oranges that you sell. It's a child," he said, holding a picture of Ana shortly before she became pregnant. "We were starting to make a family and they destroyed that completely. I have to meet my daughter. I want to tell her, girl, I'm your Dad".</p> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51938000/jpg/_51938890_lolli-still-2-jpg.jpg" alt="Dolores Diaz Cerpa, one of many mothers who is searching for a child she believes was stolen" height="171" width="304" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Dolores Diaz Cerpa believes her son was stolen from her</span> </div> <p>That longing to be reunited has led Anadir to create a DNA database. When a scientist recently visited Seville to take swabs, the small hall was packed with people convinced that their children had been stolen.</p> <p>Among those queuing nervously was 72-year-old Dolores Diaz Cerpa. She gave birth in 1973 and says when she awoke from surgery she saw 2 cots. A nurse said she'd had twins. But the boy was then removed and when Dolores woke up again she was told she'd had a girl.</p> <p>"I always believed I'd had two children and they took one off me," Dolores said. "I would dream of him and wake up wondering how he was."</p> <p>That conviction was compounded in 1995 when she requested her medical records and was sent papers for a baby boy. Dolores is entering her DNA in the database in the hope that the child she's so sure she gave birth to is alive.</p> <p>"If he knows he's adopted, I just want him to know I didn't abandon him. He was stolen," she says, echoing the view of many mothers here.</p> <p>Anadir has more than 800 members now. Other groups have more. Most are women who never saw their babies' bodies, never believed they had died and can find no record of their burials at cemeteries.</p> <div class="caption"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51884000/jpg/_51884117_antoniocourt.jpg" alt="One of many Spanish courts now investigating allegations of a baby trafficking network" height="282" width="226" /> <span style="width: 226px;">Antonio Barroso has been asked to make a statement in court</span> </div> <p>It is possible many of the children are really dead, that there are simply mistakes in the paperwork, or that mothers are confused, still raw from their loss.</p> <span class="cross-head">Court summons</span> <p>But signs of a more sinister story are mounting.</p> <p>A former nurse has claimed she witnessed baby-thefts in Madrid. A cemetery worker in Granada told the BBC he had handled child coffins that were suspiciously light, and now Anadir says a woman who was told her child had died has just been reunited with her daughter in Barcelona. The family have not spoken publicly.</p> <p>Spain's courts are certainly taking the claims seriously. </p> <p>Anadir delivered details of 261 cases of suspected baby-theft to the state prosecutor in January. Regional prosecutors have been ordered to investigate. Across Spain hundreds of people are now being summoned to make statements. New cases are being reported all the time.</p> <p>After years of fighting to get the courts to listen, Antonio Barroso has also been called to see the prosecutor. For him this is not only about trying to expose a criminal practice. It is about discovering who he really is.</p> </div>Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-55677648781006594182011-04-02T23:33:00.000-07:002011-04-02T23:35:25.176-07:00Spanish call to probe Franco-era 'baby thefts'<div class="story-body"> <span class="story-date"> <span class="date">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12302629<br /><br /><br />27 January 2011</span> <span class="time-text">Last updated at </span><span class="time">20:49 GMT</span> </span> <div id="page-bookmark-links-head" class="share-help"><br /></div> <h1 class="story-header">Spanish call to probe Franco-era 'baby thefts'</h1> <span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Sarah Rainsford</span> <span class="byline-title">BBC News, Madrid</span> </span> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50988000/jpg/_50988728_011128608-1.jpg" alt="Members of Anadir at a news conference in Getafe 27 Jan 2011" width="304" height="171" /> <span style="width: 304px;"><br />Members of Anadir attended a news conference in Getafe, near Madrid</span> </div> <div class="story-feature related narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12302629#story_continues_1"><br /></a><br /></div> <p class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">More than 260 alleged victims of a baby-trafficking network in Spain begun under the dictator General Francisco Franco have started legal action demanding an investigation.</p> <p>A victim-support group, called Anadir, estimates that thousands of babies were stolen over decades. </p> <p>Many were taken away from parents with left-wing sympathies and given to other families. </p> <p>But the group says some babies were stolen after Franco's death in 1975.</p> <p>Enrique Vila, lawyer for the victims' group bringing the case, describes a mafia of doctors and intermediaries he claims was trading children for cash.</p> <p>The practice of forcibly removing children from their mothers began in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.</p> <p>The victims then were largely Republican supporters - including prisoners - whose children were handed to more "ideologically suitable" families.</p> <p>"This structure, these methods allowed people to see the potential for a business," said Mr Vila.</p> <p>"It all started for political reasons, but in the end it could be any child at all that was targeted."<br /></p> <div class="story-feature narrow"><a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12302629#story_continues_2"></a> <h2 class="quote"><br /><span></span></h2> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50988000/jpg/_50988744_011128628.jpg" alt="Enrique Vila" width="144" height="81" /> <blockquote><p class="first-child">Just imagine how many there could be in the whole of Spain - this has to be a gigantic investigation”<span class="endquote"> </span><span class="quote-credit">Enrique Vila</span> <span class="quote-credit-title">Lawyer representing Anadir</span></p></blockquote> </div> <p id="story_continues_2">Anadir was founded by Antonio Barroso, after the man he always believed was his father made a death-bed confession. </p> <p>He admitted he had bought his son, paying "more than the price of a flat" to doctors, in cash. </p> <p>DNA tests later proved that Antonio and his parents were not biologically related.</p> <p>"We want the prosecutor to open a national investigation," Mr Barroso said outside the general prosecutor's office. </p> <p>He was accompanied by a crowd of Anadir members in white T-shirts declaring themselves "the victims of baby-trafficking" and demanding justice.</p> <p>"There are cases of mothers who had their babies' graves opened and found them empty when they had been taking flowers there for 30 years. Mothers who were deliberately tricked. Then there are people like me, whose birth certificates were faked," Mr Barroso said.</p> <p>He tried to get a local court to look into his case, but failed. He then founded Anadir as a campaign group and has been amazed at the scale of the response.</p> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50988000/jpg/_50988751_anadirbanner.jpg" alt="Anadir members in Spain" width="304" height="171" /> <span style="width: 304px;"><br />An Anadir banner declares: "We have the right to know our biological family"</span> </div> <p>Alberto and his mother Solidad Hernandez are both members. </p> <p>Solidad gave birth to twins in the 1980s and was told one had died. But as many mothers now recount, she never saw the body. Alberto says the official paperwork does not match up.</p> <p>"One set of papers says my brother was buried, others say he was cremated. One says he died of respiratory problems, another that he was malnourished," Alberto says. </p> <p>The inconsistencies feed his suspicions and give him hope his twin is still alive.</p> <p>"All my life I've thought there was someone out there. People always see me in places I have not been. This case could bring all that to a close," he says. </p> <p>Lawyer Enrique Vila admits that not all the suspicious deaths are clear-cut thefts. </p> <p>"Some mothers may be clinging to that chance, as a means of hope," he says. </p> <p>"We don't know, we have to investigate. We need to check all the records, and if necessary order exhumations, to see if there is an empty grave."</p> <p>But he claims a funeral parlour worker recently admitted transporting 20 empty coffins in the past.</p> <p>"That is just one man," Mr Vila says. </p> <p>"Just imagine how many there could be in the whole of Spain. This has to be a gigantic investigation." </p> </div>Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-84806673883702275032011-04-02T23:29:00.000-07:002011-04-02T23:30:27.946-07:00'stolen' newborn babies<div id="print-advert"> </div> <div class="story-body"> <span class="story-date"> <span class="date">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12886441<br /><br />31 March 2011</span> <span class="time-text">Last updated at </span><span class="time">00:48 GMT</span> </span> <div id="page-bookmark-links-head" class="share-help"><br /></div> <h1 class="story-header">Spain investigates tragedy of 'stolen' newborn babies</h1> <span class="byline"> <span class="byline-name">By Sarah Rainsford</span> <span class="byline-title">BBC News, Madrid</span> </span> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51898000/jpg/_51898515_antonio4.jpg" alt="Antonio Barroso at the office of Anadir, an association set-up to support suspected victims of alleged baby trade" width="304" height="405" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Antonio Barroso has been told he was bought at birth</span> </div> <div class="story-feature related narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12886441#story_continues_1">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2>Related Stories</h2> <ul class="related-links-list"><li><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12302629">Spain call to probe 'baby thefts'</a></li></ul> </div> <p class="introduction" id="story_continues_1">Antonio Barroso always suspected that something in his family wasn't quite right. He was 38 when the secret was finally revealed: his parents had bought him as a baby.</p> <p>"I discovered my whole life was a lie," Antonio said. </p> <p>The truth came out during the deathbed confession of a family friend. Like Antonio's parents, he and his wife had been unable to conceive. Both couples had bought their babies from a nun, for "more than the price of a flat".</p> <p>Antonio's mother has since confirmed the story and DNA tests have proved he has no genetic link to the couple who raised him. His birth certificate had been falsified.</p> <span class="cross-head">'Illicit trade'</span> <p>"I want to know the truth," Antonio said, flicking through snapshots of his childhood, "To find out who I am and where I come from. I want to know what happened and who was responsible. And if people need to be punished, they should be punished".</p> <p>Antonio soon discovered other cases similar to his own, and signs of an illicit trade in newborn babies.</p> <p>At the support group he set up in Vilanova i la Geltru, his home town on the Catalan coast, the phone rarely stops ringing. The desk is piled high with letters from Spaniards who fear they could be victims of a criminal network, thought to have operated until the 1990s.</p> <div class="story-feature narrow"> <a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12886441#story_continues_2">Continue reading the main story</a> <h2 class="quote">“<span>Start Quote</span></h2> <blockquote><p class="first-child">We were starting to make a family and they destroyed that completely. I have to meet my daughter. I want to tell her, girl, I'm your Dad”</p></blockquote> <span class="endquote">End Quote</span> <span class="quote-credit">Salvador Martin</span> <span class="quote-credit-title">Father, who believes his daughter was stolen from him</span> <ul class="links-list"><li> <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12885238" class="quote-link">In pictures: Spanish 'baby trade'</a></li></ul> </div> <p id="story_continues_2">For some, that suspicion is strengthened by Spain's history. After the civil war, children were removed from Republican prisoners and given to supporters of General Franco's dictatorship. Historians estimate up to 30,000 children were affected by the 'ideological cleansing'.</p> <span class="cross-head">'Baby-theft'</span> <p>"In the 1950s, that practice was converted into mafia business," said Enrique Vila, a lawyer helping Antonio's support group, Anadir. "The goal became money. They took children from anyone, to sell."</p> <p>The lawyer believes some babies were abandoned by unmarried Catholic girls or prostitutes and others were stolen after doctors told mothers that their newborns had died.</p> <p>Ana Josefa Escabia died several hours after giving birth in Terrassa in 1975. Her husband clearly remembers seeing his daughter alive. </p> <p>"I saw her born," Salvador Martin said, his eyes welling with tears, 36 years later. "She was gorgeous, just like her sister."</p> <p>But doctors later told Salvador his baby had been stillborn. A sealed coffin was delivered to the cemetery.</p> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51879000/jpg/_51879028_anayounger.jpg" alt="Salvador Martin and wife Ana Josefa, in 1970s, just before she became pregnant " width="304" height="171" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Ana Josefa Escabia and her husband were told that their baby was stillborn</span> </div> <p>Last December, tormented by doubts, Salvador decided to open the family vault. DNA tests revealed the baby inside was a boy, and no relation. </p> <p>Salvador is now desperate to know what happened to his daughter. No other baby was buried in Terrassa on that day. He is convinced his child was stolen.</p> <span class="cross-head">DNA database</span> <p>"It's not like a bag of oranges that you sell. It's a child," he said, holding a picture of Ana shortly before she became pregnant. "We were starting to make a family and they destroyed that completely. I have to meet my daughter. I want to tell her, girl, I'm your Dad".</p> <div class="caption body-narrow-width"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51938000/jpg/_51938890_lolli-still-2-jpg.jpg" alt="Dolores Diaz Cerpa, one of many mothers who is searching for a child she believes was stolen" width="304" height="171" /> <span style="width: 304px;">Dolores Diaz Cerpa believes her son was stolen from her</span> </div> <p>That longing to be reunited has led Anadir to create a DNA database. When a scientist recently visited Seville to take swabs, the small hall was packed with people convinced that their children had been stolen.</p> <p>Among those queuing nervously was 72-year-old Dolores Diaz Cerpa. She gave birth in 1973 and says when she awoke from surgery she saw 2 cots. A nurse said she'd had twins. But the boy was then removed and when Dolores woke up again she was told she'd had a girl.</p> <p>"I always believed I'd had two children and they took one off me," Dolores said. "I would dream of him and wake up wondering how he was."</p> <p>That conviction was compounded in 1995 when she requested her medical records and was sent papers for a baby boy. Dolores is entering her DNA in the database in the hope that the child she's so sure she gave birth to is alive.</p> <p>"If he knows he's adopted, I just want him to know I didn't abandon him. He was stolen," she says, echoing the view of many mothers here.</p> <p>Anadir has more than 800 members now. Other groups have more. Most are women who never saw their babies' bodies, never believed they had died and can find no record of their burials at cemeteries.</p> <div class="caption"> <img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/51884000/jpg/_51884117_antoniocourt.jpg" alt="One of many Spanish courts now investigating allegations of a baby trafficking network" width="226" height="282" /> <span style="width: 226px;">Antonio Barroso has been asked to make a statement in court</span> </div> <p>It is possible many of the children are really dead, that there are simply mistakes in the paperwork, or that mothers are confused, still raw from their loss.</p> <span class="cross-head">Court summons</span> <p>But signs of a more sinister story are mounting.</p> <p>A former nurse has claimed she witnessed baby-thefts in Madrid. A cemetery worker in Granada told the BBC he had handled child coffins that were suspiciously light, and now Anadir says a woman who was told her child had died has just been reunited with her daughter in Barcelona. The family have not spoken publicly.</p> <p>Spain's courts are certainly taking the claims seriously. </p> <p>Anadir delivered details of 261 cases of suspected baby-theft to the state prosecutor in January. Regional prosecutors have been ordered to investigate. Across Spain hundreds of people are now being summoned to make statements. New cases are being reported all the time.</p> <p>After years of fighting to get the courts to listen, Antonio Barroso has also been called to see the prosecutor. For him this is not only about trying to expose a criminal practice. It is about discovering who he really is.</p> </div>Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-13277080567231541132011-01-23T03:13:00.000-08:002011-01-23T03:18:35.752-08:00Vatican letter told Ireland's Catholic bishops not to report child abuse<h1 style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:1.5pt;margin-left: 0cm;background:white"><span style="font-size:19.5pt;font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:#333333;font-weight:normal"><br /></span></h1><h1 style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:1.5pt;margin-left: 0cm;background:white"><span style="font-family: Georgia; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-weight: normal; " ><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/18/vatican-irish-bishops-child-abuse">http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/18/vatican-irish-bishops-child-abuse</a></span></h1><h1 style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:1.5pt;margin-left: 0cm;background:white"><span style="font-size:19.5pt;font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:#333333;font-weight:normal"><br /></span></h1><h1 style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:1.5pt;margin-left: 0cm;background:white"><span style="font-size:19.5pt;font-family:Georgia; mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;color:#333333;font-weight:normal">Vatican letter told Ireland's Catholic bishops not to report child abuse<o:p></o:p></span></h1> <p class="stand-first-alone" style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;background: white;background-repeat:no-repeat" id="stand-first"><span style="font-family: Arial;color:#666666">Policy to tell police about priest suspects was vetoed, as lawyers say proof at last of cover-up by papacy<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:11.25pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#333333"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:11.25pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#333333">Associated Press in Dublin<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:11.25pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#333333"><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/"><span style="color:#005689">guardian.co.uk</span></a>, <time datetime="2011-01-18T20:48GMT" pubdate="" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; ">Tuesday 18 January 2011 20.48 GMT<o:p></o:p></time></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:11.25pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#333333"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:11.25pt;background:white"><span style="font-size:9.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:#333333"><o:p> </o:p></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; font-size: 14px; border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); "><img src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/About/General/2011/1/18/1295383627499/A-copy-of-the-1997-letter-007.jpg" width="460" height="276" alt="A copy of the 1997 letter from the Vatican warning Irish bishops not to report child-abuse cases" style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; " /></span></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px; "><figcaption style="padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; border-collapse: collapse; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); display: block; font-size: 12px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; "><br /></figcaption></span> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Arial;color:#333333">A copy of the 1997 letter from the Vatican, obtained by Irish broadcasters RTE and provided to AP, warning Ireland's Catholic bishops not to report all suspected child-abuse cases to police. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Arial;color:#333333"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Arial;color:#333333"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:Arial;color:#333333">A letter to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/ireland" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Ireland" style="background-repeat:no-repeat"><span style="color:#005689">Ireland</span></a>'s Roman Catholic bishops has been revealed by the broadcaster RTE that contradicts the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/vatican" title="More from guardian.co.uk on Vatican" style="background-repeat:no-repeat"><span style="color:#005689">Vatican</span></a>'s frequent claim it has never instructed clergy to withhold evidence or suspicion of child abuse from police.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="margin:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt"><span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:Arial;color:#333333"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:9.75pt;margin-left: 0cm;background-repeat:no-repeat"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family: Arial;color:#333333">The 1997 letter documents rejection of a 1996 Irish church initiative to help police identify paedophile priests. Signed by the late Archbishop Luciano Storero, Pope John Paul II's envoy to Ireland, it instructs bishops that their new policy of making the reporting of suspected crimes mandatory "gives rise to serious reservations of both a moral and canonical nature".<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:9.75pt;margin-left: 0cm;background-repeat:no-repeat"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family: Arial;color:#333333">Storero wrote that canon law, whereby allegations and punishments are handled within the church, "must be meticulously followed"; any bishop who tried to go outside canon law would face the "highly embarrassing" position of being overturned on appeal in Rome.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:9.75pt;margin-left: 0cm;background-repeat:no-repeat"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family: Arial;color:#333333">A 2009 Irish state report found this actually happened with Tony Walsh, one of Dublin's most notorious paedophiles, who exploited his role as an Elvis impersonator in a popular "All Priests Show" to get closer to children. In 1993, Walsh was defrocked by a secret church court, but successfully appealed to a Vatican court, and was reinstated in the priesthood in 1994. He raped a boy in a pub restroom that year. Walsh since has received a series of prison sentences, with a 12-year term imposed last month. Investigators estimate he raped or molested more than 100 children.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:9.75pt;margin-left: 0cm;background-repeat:no-repeat"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family: Arial;color:#333333">Catholic officials in Ireland and the Vatican declined requests from the Associated Press to comment on the letter, marked "strictly confidential"; RTE said it had been given it by an Irish bishop.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:9.75pt;margin-left: 0cm;background-repeat:no-repeat"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family: Arial;color:#333333">"The letter is of huge international significance," said Colm O'Gorman, director of the Irish section of Amnesty International. "It shows that the Vatican's intention is to prevent reporting of abuse to criminal authorities. And if that instruction applied here [in Ireland], it applied everywhere."<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:9.75pt;margin-left: 0cm;background-repeat:no-repeat"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family: Arial;color:#333333">Joelle Casteix, a director of the US advocacy group Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, described it as "the smoking gun we've been looking for." It was certain to be cited by lawyers acting for victims seeking to pin responsibility directly on Rome, not the dioceses.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:9.75pt;margin-left: 0cm;background-repeat:no-repeat"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family: Arial;color:#333333">To this day, the Vatican has not endorsed any of the Irish church's three documents since 1996 on safeguarding children. Irish taxpayers, rather than the church, have paid most of the €1.5bn to more than 14,000 abuse claimants dating back to the 1940s.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:9.75pt;margin-left: 0cm;background-repeat:no-repeat"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family: Arial;color:#333333">In a 2010 letter to Ireland condemning paedophiles in the ranks, Pope Benedict XVI faulted bishops for not following canon law and offered no explicit endorsement of child-protection efforts by the Irish church or state. He was widely criticised in Ireland.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p style="margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:9.75pt;margin-left: 0cm;background-repeat:no-repeat"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family: Arial;color:#333333">O'Gorman (who was raped repeatedly by a priest in the 1980s when an altar boy) said evidence is mounting that some Irish bishops continued to follow the 1997 Vatican instructions. A state investigation of Cloyne diocese is to come out soon, citing crimes concealed as recently as 2008.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com83tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7322511481612577767.post-64513055548331256532011-01-12T14:48:00.002-08:002011-01-12T14:51:04.996-08:00Irish abortion ban 'violated woman's rights'<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; font-size: 13px; "><span class="story-date" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; display: block; padding-top: 13px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 8px; padding-left: 0px; width: 290px; float: left; "><span class="date" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; font-weight: bold; "><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11342247">http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11342247</a></span></span><span class="story-date" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); 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"><span class="date" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; font-weight: bold; ">16 December 2010</span> <span class="time-text" style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; ">Last updated at </span><span class="time" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; ">17:42 GMT</span></span><div id="page-bookmark-links-head" class="share-help" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; position: relative; width: 240px; float: right; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-top: 8px; margin-right: -160px; margin-bottom: -2px; margin-left: 0px; z-index: 1; "><h3 style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 24px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; 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">Email</a></li><li class="print" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 5px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 1px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 1px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; float: left; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><a title="Print this story" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11342247?print=true" style="color: rgb(31, 79, 130); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; display: block; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 16px; background-image: url(http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/view/1_4_3/cream/hi/shared/img/story_sprite.gif); text-indent: -6000px; float: left; background-position: -773px 0px; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat; ">Print</a></li></ul></div><h1 class="story-header" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 34px; margin-top: 3px; margin-right: -160px; margin-bottom: 13px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 2.461em; clear: both; position: relative; width: 623px; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: -1px; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; ">Irish abortion ban 'violated woman's rights'</h1><div class="caption body-narrow-width" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; position: relative; clear: both; float: right; display: inline; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: -160px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 16px; "><img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/50456000/jpg/_50456126_010860242-2.jpg" width="304" height="171" alt="European Court of Human Rights" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; -webkit-user-select: none; position: relative; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; " /><span style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; display: block; width: 304px; ">The court's ruling could lead to a change in Irish abortion laws</span></div><div class="story-feature related narrow" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; position: relative; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: -160px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 16px; width: 144px; float: right; display: inline; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; clear: right; "><a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11342247#story_continues_1" style="color: rgb(31, 79, 130); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; position: absolute; top: -5000px; left: -5000px; ">Continue reading the main story</a><h2 style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 11px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.231em; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); font-weight: bold; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; ">Related stories</h2><ul class="related-links-list" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 8px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; list-style-type: none; list-style-position: initial; list-style-image: initial; clear: both; border-top-style: none; border-top-width: initial; border-top-color: initial; "><li style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1em; text-rendering: auto; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12008623" style="color: rgb(31, 79, 130); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Q&A: What ruling means</a></li><li style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1em; text-rendering: auto; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8403013.stm" style="color: rgb(31, 79, 130); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; ">Irish abortion case in Strasbourg</a></li><li style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1em; text-rendering: auto; background-image: none; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: initial; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; "><br /></li></ul></div><p class="introduction" id="story_continues_1" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; font-weight: bold; ">The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that Irish abortion laws violated the rights of one of three women who sought terminations in Britain.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The woman, who was in remission for a rare form of cancer, feared it might return as a result of her pregnancy.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">While abortion in the Republic is technically allowed if a woman's life is at risk, the court said that was not made possible for the woman involved.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">But it ruled two other women in the case had not had their rights breached.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The court said the Irish government had failed to properly implement the constitutional right to abortion if a woman's life was in danger.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">Correspondents say the ruling is likely to force the Dublin government to introduce new legislation or bring in new guidelines.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen said politicians now needed to consider the implications of the ruling.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">"It's an issue for the whole political spectrum to consider," he said.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; "><strong style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; font-weight: bold; ">Respect for private life</strong></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The first two women in the case were a single mother who had other children in care and a woman who did not want to become a single parent.</p><div class="story-feature wide " style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; position: relative; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: -160px; margin-bottom: 16px; margin-left: 16px; width: 304px; float: right; display: inline; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; clear: right; "><a class="hidden" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11342247#story_continues_2" style="color: rgb(31, 79, 130); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; position: absolute; top: -5000px; left: -5000px; ">Continue reading the main story</a><h2 style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 8px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 11px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 12px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.231em; border-top-width: 1px; border-top-style: solid; border-top-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); border-bottom-width: 1px; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-color: rgb(216, 216, 216); font-weight: bold; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; "><br /></h2></div><p id="story_continues_2" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">All three women said they had suffered medical complications on returning to the Irish Republic and said they believed they had not been entitled to an abortion under Irish law.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">They all complained that Irish restrictions on abortion had stigmatised and humiliated them, risking damage to their health.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">However the third woman had argued that even though she believed her pregnancy had put her life at risk, there was no law or procedure for her to have her right to an abortion established.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The court said that the government in Dublin had breached the third woman's right to respect for her private life by its "failure to implement the existing constitutional right to a lawful abortion in Ireland".</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">It ruled that "neither the medical consultation nor litigation options, relied on by the Irish government, constituted effective and accessible procedures which allowed the third applicant to establish her right to a lawful abortion in Ireland".</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The court said that the only non-judicial way of determining the risk to a woman's life - on which the government relied - was an ordinary medical consultation between the woman and her doctor. It described this as "ineffective".</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">It said that women and their doctors both ran a risk of criminal conviction and imprisonment "if an initial doctor's opinion that abortion was an option as it posed a risk to the woman's health was later found to be against the Irish constitution".</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The court said Irish constitutional courts were not appropriate for determining whether a woman qualified for a lawful abortion.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">Under Irish law, abortion is a criminal act although a referendum in 1983 amended the constitution acknowledging the mother's right to life was equal to that of the child.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">Following several legal cases, the Irish Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that abortion was lawful if the mother's life was at risk.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">However, the Irish parliament has never enacted legislation regulating the constitutionally guaranteed right.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The three women were all supported by the Irish Family Planning Association. They have not been identified, although two are Irish nationals and one is a Lithuanian who is resident in the Irish Republic.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The UK-based abortion charity BPAS - which submitted written observations to the court - welcomed the ruling.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">"The lack of clarity as to when abortion may be lawful in Ireland puts women and doctors in an impossible situation, and the sooner this can be remedied the better," said BPAS chief executive Ann Furedi.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; "><br /></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; "><br /></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; "></p><div class="byline" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; display: block; position: relative; padding-top: 1px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 16px; padding-left: 0px; border-bottom-style: none; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; clear: both; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; overflow-x: hidden; overflow-y: hidden; font-size: 13px; "><span class="byline-picture" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; display: inline; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; float: left; padding-top: 2px; "><img src="http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/48743000/jpg/_48743317_006528083-1.jpg" alt="image of Mark Simpson" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; -webkit-user-select: none; display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 8px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; position: relative; top: 0px; float: left; font-size: 13px; letter-spacing: 0px; font-weight: normal; font-style: italic; " /></span><span class="byline-name" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 1.231em; font-weight: bold; text-rendering: optimizelegibility; padding-bottom: 2px; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-width: initial; border-color: initial; ">Mark Simpson</span><span class="byline-title" style="color: rgb(80, 80, 80); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">BBC Ireland Correspondent</span></div><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">Ireland is now under pressure to do what successive Irish governments have avoided doing for almost 20 years - alter its abortion laws.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">In theory, it would not be a major change. It would simply reflect the judgement of the Irish Supreme Court in 1992 which ruled that a woman whose life was in danger should be allowed an abortion.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">In practice, defining what constitutes a threat to life for the mother will be a legal minefield.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">Changing the law would also be a political minefield. Ireland is bitterly divided over abortion, and the Irish government has plenty of other priorities at present with the financial crisis and a general election early next year.</p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 16px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 12px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; ">The European Court ruling means Ireland must now reconsider its abortion legislation. The current government will be in no rush to do so.</p><p></p><p style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial, Helmet, Freesans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.077em; text-rendering: auto; clear: left; "><br /></p></span>Bad Newshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12774679970522264882noreply@blogger.com14